Turkish President Gül says stability is nation’s greatest asset on way to success

ISTANBUL

Political and economic reforms go hand in hand, President Gül says. DHA photo

The political stability in Turkey is “without a doubt” Turkey’s “greatest asset” on the way to economic success, President Abdullah Gül said today during his speech at an engineering conference in Istanbul.

The president added that the reforms that had taken place in the past decade had contributed to the strength of the Turkish economy by rendering the system protected against domestic and global tremors.

“We took some great steps with the political stability that was achieved over the last decade. These steps happened both in the economy and in politics, and in our lives too. The political and economic reforms went hand in hand to create today’s Turkey. And that, as we can see, is being tested,” Gül said.

He added that both global and domestic blows failed to fatally wound the country. “Not only do we see that tremors from within fail to harm the Turkish economy, but even global crises of a larger scale failed to cause any great shake-up of the Turkish economy. The reason for that is the political and economic reforms we have initiated over the last decade,” Gül said.
 
Turkey both fulfilled political criteria in accordance with the European Union accession process, as well as catching up with the necessary legal and economic regulations of a working market economy, according to Gül.

“It is a great achievement that Turkey has experienced growth five times greater than the EU in the last decade. Still though, when we compare ourselves to developed countries, we can see clearly that there is a lot that needs to be done for Turkey,” he said.

Gül and Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, who also attended the conference, received lifetime memberships from the Industry Engineers Institution following the event.