Turkey, known officially as the Republic of Turkey, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia and Thrace (Rumelia) in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhichevan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea and Archipelago are to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. Separating Anatolia and Thrace are the Sea of Marmara and the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles), which are commonly reckoned to delineate the border between Asia and Europe, thereby making Turkey transcontinental. The capital city is Ankara.
Due to its strategic location astride two continents, Turkey's culture has a unique blend of Eastern and Western tradition.
Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in organizations such as the Council of Europe, NATO, OECD, OSCE and the G-20 major economies. Turkey began full membership negotiations with the European Union in 2005, having been an associate member of the EEC since 1963, and having reached a customs union agreement in 1995. Meanwhile, as a Muslim-majority country, Turkey has continued to foster close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the Eastern world, particularly with the states of the Middle East and Central Asia, through membership in organizations such as the OIC and ECO. Turkey is classified as a developed country by the CIA and as a regional power by political scientists and economists worldwide.
Turkey is a founding member of the OECD and the G-20 major economies.
The GDP growth rate from 2002 to 2007 averaged 7.4% and this made Turkey one of the fastest growing economies in the world during that period. The World Bank forecasts a 5.4% GDP growth rate for Turkey in 2008. Turkey's economy is no longer dominated by traditional agricultural activities in the rural areas, but more so by a highly dynamic industrial complex in the major cities, mostly concentrated in the western provinces of the country, along with a developed services sector. In 2007, the agricultural sector accounted for 8.9% of the GDP, while the industrial sector accounted for 30.8% and the services sector accounted for 59.3%.The tourism sector has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2008, there were 30,929,192 visitors to the country, who contributed 21.9 billion USD to Turkey's revenues.
Etox is a Turkish sports car brand, based in Ankara. Other key sectors of the Turkish economy are banking, construction, home appliances, electronics, textiles, oil refining, petrochemical products, food, mining, iron and steel, machine industry and automotive. Turkey has a large and growing automotive industry, which produced 1,024,987 motor vehicles in 2006, ranking as the 6th largest automotive producer in Europe in that year; behind Germany (5,819,614), France (3,174,260), Spain (2,770,435), the United Kingdom (1,648,388), and Italy (1,211,594), respectively. Turkey is also one of the leading shipbuilding nations; in 2007 the country ranked 4th in the world (behind China, South Korea and Japan) in terms of the number of ordered ships, and also 4th in the world (behind Italy, USA and Canada) in terms of the number of ordered mega yachts.
In recent years, the chronically high inflation has been brought under control and this has led to the launch of a new currency, the New Turkish Lira, on January 1, 2005, to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. On January 1, 2009, the New Turkish Lira was renamed once again as the Turkish Lira, with the introduction of new banknotes and coins.
Turkey has taken advantage of a customs union with the European Union, signed in 1995, to increase its industrial production destined for exports, while at the same time benefiting from EU-origin foreign investment into the country.
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| Number of EWB companies registered | 0
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| National EwB coordinator | Hatice Tugsavul |
| Email | haticetugsavul [at] gencbasari.org |
| Official languages | Turkish |
| Population | 71,517,100 |
| GDP |
$937.143 billion
Per capita $13,447
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| Currency | Turkish lira (TRY) |
| Time zone | EET (UTC+2) |
| Internet TLD | .tr |
| Calling code | +90 |
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