Turkey Is the Capital of the Developing World
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It is a feat for Turkey which would have been unimaginable even a decade ago. The nation has traditional been seen as a basket case economy - the original "sick man of Europe" - constantly suffering from soaring inflation, bust-and-boom cycles and frequently the recipient of an IMF bailout.
But under sound macroeconomic policy since 2002, Turkey has steadily become the fastest growing economy in Europe and second only to China (and maybe India) amongst international GDP growth. Earlier this year Turkey recorded double-digit growth and Goldman Sachs recently wrote that Turkey will be the third largest economy in Europe (after Germany and Russia) in 2050.
Turkish exports are booming as the nation symbolically lies at one of the crosswords of the world: between what we call the West and what we call the East.
And recently a reported jointly prepared by the Brookings Institution (a Washington centrist think thank), London School of Economics and Global MetroMonitor listed Turkey's de facto capital (its actual capital is Ankara in central Anatolia) Istanbul as the world's best-performing city in terms of economic growth out of a total 150 ranked cities. The study measures gross value added per person (a measurement of income) and employment: Turkey averages 5.5% and 7.3% this year, respectively. Above all else.
All top 10 cities are, naturally, cities in developing countries with booming market growth. Half of the cities are from China, including #2 Shenzhen, making the nation the best national performer. Expectedly so. And Brazil's Rio de Janeiro rounds out the top 10.
