The main reason for the growing deficits of recent years is not the ageing of the population, but early retirement. The pension system deficit has been growing rapidly since 1992, when the minimum retirement age requirement was abolished. A new bill to correct this situation has already been approved by parliament. As regards privatization, public enterprises still play a central role in Turkey. We all know that a stronger privatization program would reduce the state’s involvement in commercial and industrial activities, and that this in turn would reduce the budgetary burden of subsidies and deepen the capital markets by encouraging wider ownership of shares. Since privatization has come to be seen as a key element of policies aimed at improving resource allocation, it will be essential to modernize Turkey’s legal and institutional framework for privatization and to bring it more in line with EU norms and the norms now prevailing in some of the region’s more successful transition economies. An adequate legal foundation will be the key element of such reforms. Important steps have recently been taken in this direction, and the constitution has been amended to reduce the legal obstacles obstructing the privatization process. And in order to attract foreign investors who could be interested in privatization, long awaited amendments to the constitution concerning international arbitration have also been approved by parliament. The agricultural sector is especially important in Turkey. It still contributes around 15% of GDP and accounts for about 42% of all employment.
This never happened! Hence, during the 1980s, policymakers realised that economic reforms were needed as a lasting solution to Zambia’s economic woes. For instance, between 1985 and 1987, Zambia undertook an IMF/World Bank-sponsored adjustment programme. This led to a partial decontrol of interest rates and the introduction of a Dutch Foreign Exchange System as a way of allocating scarce foreign exchange through a quasi-market system. It also entailed the removal of some subsidies as a remedy to the persistent fiscal deficits. The reforms proved to be highly unpopular and culminated in public protests and abandonment of the IMF supported reform programme in May 1987. Instead, the Government pursued an indigenous programme called ‘New Economic Recovery Programme’ (NERP) whose theme was “Growth from Own Resources”. Although this programme was successful in some respects, it suffered major setbacks, such as the overvaluation of the Kwacha, soaring inflation, lack of external financing, among others, that made the programme unsustainable, thus prompting the Government to go back to the IMF and agreed on a new IMF supported programme in 1989.