Durmuş Yılmaz: The role of competition policy and practices in attaining macroeconomic objectives Speech by Mr Durmus Yılmaz, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, on the occasion of the 11th Anniversary of the Turkish Competition Authority, Ankara, 26 March 2008. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, First of all, I would like to greet you all. We have convened here on the occasion of celebrating the 11th Anniversary of a distinguished institution of Turkey. The Turkish Competition Authority has served its critical function in the development process of Turkey with the studies it has conducted. Let me take this opportunity at the very beginning of my speech to say that I believe the contributions of the Competition Authority to Turkey’s development will continue in an increased capacity in the upcoming periods. The main objective of public policies is to increase prosperity. Under the current circumstances, where economies are becoming increasingly interrelated, raising the level of prosperity of our country is contingent on increasing the share it gets from the global value added. In the post-2001 period, the Turkish economy grew by approximately 7 percent on a year-onyear basis and considerably increased its share in the world export market. During this period, the private sector was the engine for growth, with the greatest contribution from the industrial sector. In the 23-quarter periods of uninterrupted growth process, private sector investments increased by 150 percent in real terms.
So it is relatively early days to pass judgement on how the current recovery is proceeding. However, the performance of the British economy over the first year of this recovery does provide some grounds for encouragement. The recovery has been somewhat uneven. As Chart 1 shows, after a couple of quarters of rather subdued growth at the end of last year and early this year, GDP picked up strongly in the second quarter – producing the largest quarterly rise in GDP for nearly a decade. BIS Review 134/2010  1  We do not yet have an official estimate of growth for the third quarter, but the National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates that GDP rose by 0.5% in this period. That would produce an annual growth rate of 2.5% for the first year of the economic recovery – in line with the historical average growth trend and somewhat stronger than the rebound we saw in the early stages of the previous two economic recoveries, in the early 1980s and early 1990s. 1 The fact that growth has been uneven from quarter to quarter should not be a great surprise as uneven growth is not unusual as an economy begins to recover from recession. This return to economic growth must be seen against the background of a sharper fall in output than we experienced in previous post-war recessions. But two more positive aspects of the early stages of this recovery are worth highlighting.