Economic Liberalization and Turkey

The liberalization of the Turkish economy is a key factor affecting Turkey’s application to join the European Union. This book examines the impact of economic liberalization in Turkey and Turkey’s approach to the elimination of barriers to trade. It focuses on the liberalization of trade in Turkey’s agricultural and industrial commodities sector and key services such as telecommunications, electricity, natural gas, banking and transport. The chapters include thorough discussions on WTO and EU approaches for the elimination of barriers to trade, international and EU rules and regulations in the various service sectors, and the methods for estimating the tariff equivalents of barriers to trade in the different service sectors as well as methods for estimating the benefits of liberalization of services for Turkey. The experience of Turkey, its approach to liberalization and its measures to eliminate barriers to trade serve as a useful model for other neighboring countries of the European Union.

Subidey Togan is Professor of Economics, and the Director of the Centre for International Economics at Bilkent University, Turkey. His recent publications include (as co-editor) Macroeconomic Policies for EU Accession; Turkey: Economic Reform and Accession to the European Union and Turkey and Central and Eastern European Countries in Transition: Towards Membership of the EU.