Overview: After an impressive economic performance through most of the 1980s, Turkey has experienced erratic rates of economic growth since 1988 - ranging from a high of 9.2% in 1990 to a low of 0.9% in 1991. Strong consumer demand and increased public investment led the way to a strong 5.9% growth in 1992. Chronic high inflation is Turkey's most serious economic problem, leading to high interest rates and the rapid depreciation of the Turkish lira. The huge public sector deficit - about 12% of GDP - and the Treasury's heavy reliance on Central Bank financing of the deficit are the major causes of Turkish inflation. Meanwhile, wage increases in both the public and private sector have outpaced productivity gains, limited the government's ability to reduce current expenditures, and hindered the return to profitability of many private companies. Agriculture remains an important economic sector, employing about half of the work force, contributing 18% to GDP, and accounting for about 20% of exports. The government has launched a multibillion-dollar development program in the southeastern region, which includes the building of a dozen dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to generate electric power and irrigate large tracts of farmland. The Turkish economy will probably continue to grow faster than the West European average in 1993, but the shaky coalition government of Prime Minister DEMIREL - which has seen its parliamentary majority shrink from 36 to 11 seats during its first year in power - is unlikely to risk further erosion of its support by implementing the belt-tightening measures necessary to substantially reduce inflation.

National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $219 billion (1992)

National product real growth rate: 5.9% (1992)

National product per capita: $3,670 (1992)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 70% (1992)

Unemployment rate: 11.1% (1992 est.)

Budget: revenues $40.5 billion; expenditures $46.8 billion, including capital expenditures of $5.5 billion (1993)

External debt: $48.7 billion (1991)

Industrial production: growth rate 3.2% (1991 est.); accounts for 28% of GDP

Electricity: 14,400,000 kW capacity; 44,000 million kWh produced, 750 kWh per capita (1991)

Industries: textiles, food processing, mining (coal, chromite, copper, boron minerals), steel, petroleum, construction, lumber, paper

Agriculture: accounts for 18% of GDP and employs about half of working force; products - tobacco, cotton, grain, olives, sugar beets, pulses, citrus fruit, variety of animal products; self-sufficient in food most years

Illicit drugs: major transit route for Southwest Asian heroin and hashish to Western Europe and the US via air, land, and sea routes; major Turkish, Iranian, and other international trafficking organizations operate out of Istanbul; laboratories to convert imported morphine base into heroin have sprung up in remote regions of Turkey as well as near Istanbul; government maintains strict controls over areas of legal opium poppy cultivation and output of poppy straw concentrate

Economic aid: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $2.3 billion; Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-89), $10.1 billion; OPEC bilateral aid (1979-89), $665 million; Communist countries (1970-89), $4.5 billion; note - aid for Persian Gulf war efforts from coalition allies (1991), $4.1 billion; aid pledged for Turkish Defense Fund, $2.5 billion

Currency: 1 Turkish lira (TL)=100 kurus

Exchange rates: Turkish liras (TL) per US$1 - 8,814.3 (January 1993), 6,872.4 (1992), 4,171.8 (1991), 2,608.6 (1990), 2,121.7 (1989), 1,422.3 (1988)

Fiscal year: calendar year