The 1st anniversary of the foundation of the Information Center was celebrated at a meeting titled "The Process of Transformation in the Turkish Economy: Increasing Need for New Information and Policy Practices".
The 1st anniversary of Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) and World Bank Information Center was celebrated at a meeting titled "The Process of Transformation in the Turkish Economy: Increasing Need for New Information and Policy Practices". Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, TOBB Chairman; Ulrich Zachau, World Bank Country Director for Turkey; and Güven Sak, Director of TEPAV, attended the meeting.
TOBB Chairman, Hisarcıklıoğlu, who made the opening speech, said that TEPAV - World Bank Information Center became the first address in Turkey for researchers looking for development related issues last year. Hisarcıklıoğlu, saying "TEPAV has been contributing actively to the activities of World Bank aimed at the development of the private sector in our country", stated that the higher education sector report which was designed last year provided an important input to the education sector strategies of the Bank by revealing the incongruity between the needs of the employers and the education at universities. TOBB Chairman, Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, stating that all these efforts were aimed at determining the policies pertaining the private sector in Turkey not randomly, but based on knowledge, expressed that they would continue contributing to the designing process of the policies actively onwards and that they wanted to play an active role in the designing of the second generation reforms, the need for which they had emphasized for a long time in this regard. World Bank Country Director for Turkey, Ulrich Zachau, said in his speech that they were content with their cooperation with TEPAV. Zachau, who said the Turkish economy had made great improvements in recent years, highlighted that there was a need for second generation reforms and the importance of the Government's continuing the reforms for this purpose. Ulrich Zachau stated that the administration of economy and the position of the finance sector were good, and this raised the credit rating of Turkey in the international arena and said "Although the Turkish economy is in a good condition now, there may be unexpected developments in the world market next year. Of course Turkey is not responsible for this. But I believe that Turkey will overcome this with the least damage via the existing autonomous institutes and the good economy administration."
TEPAV Director, Güven Sak, emphasized the importance of the realization of the second generation reforms inevitably in his speech. Sak, who stated that steps such as seamless privatization, inflations and foreign exchange policies via first generation reforms, expressed that innovations in many fields of life would be provided with the second generation reform pack. Güven Sak emphasized that the expectation of the outer world was so, and said "The priorities of the new period are to relieve the pain of the losers without cutting speed, to ensure the progression of the fast development process, and to integrate more robustly with the global economy. However we are going through a financial process which we are not accustomed to. In this period, there is need for policy recommendations relying on information and analytical studies."