The speed and value champions

During this period, many traditional sectors, such as information technology, automotives, FMCG and foodstuffs, have appreciated in value at similar rates to the economy in general. But e-commerce has increased in value 39 fold, personal pensions 27 fold, vehicle leasing 25 fold and factoring 18 fold. E-commerce heads the list of sectors which have appreciated most in value. In the last ten years, e-commerce has grown by 3,818 per cent, making it the fastest growing sector.

Those which have appreciated most in value
In the last ten years in Turkey it is the new sectors and the newly developing sectors which have made their mark in terms of appreciating the most in value. When we gather all the data together, we see that, in 34 different areas, e-commerce and private pensions from the new sectors and vehicle leasing and factoring from the developing sectors have increased in value by over 1,000 percent. The sector which has grown most in value is e-commerce, which has risen nearly 40-fold compared with 10 years ago. In 2001, the sector had a turnover of $370 million. According to data from the Interbank Card Center, the volume of payments over the Internet has now risen to $14.5 billion. The sector has grown by 3,800 percent. According to our research, the private pension system, which did not exist 10 years ago, is the second fastest growing sector. Eight years ago the size of the sector stood at $176 million. Last year it stood at $7.5 billion. This represents a growth rate of 2,600 percent.
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The gap has opened up in services
When we look at the areas that have grown most in value over the last ten years we see hat services sector comes to the fore. Here, the sector that has grown the most is the vehicle leasing market, which has grown by 2,400 percent from $80 million ten years ago to around $2 billion in 2011. Another sector which has grown rapidly in value is consumer electronics. The sector, which was not yet established ten years ago, has now grown to rank tenth largest worldwide and seventh largest in Europe. Teknosa General Manager Mehmet Nane says: "The sector has increased still more in value over the last five years as a result of new players entering the market." Another striking performance has been in call centers, which were just developing ten years ago and which today are major foreign exchange earners through the services that they provide for foreign companies. There are no data from ten years ago but when we compare the figures today with those from seven years ago we can see that the sector has quadrupled in size.~

Exports have added value
After the 2001 crisis, the contraction in domestic demand pushed leading sectors such as automotives, machinery, iron and steel, and food and drink to emphasize exports and meant that they grew more rapidly than other sectors. During this period, automotive exports and contracting activities abroad have increased in value by more than 700 percent. The emphasis on exports has enabled automotives to grow five-fold in value over the last 10 year. According to data from the Association of Automotive Parts and Components Manufacturers, the size of the market has grown from $8 billion in 2011 to $40 billion today. The sector's exports have increased from $2.3 billion to $20 billion. Exports have also given added impetus to the chemicals sector. The sector's exports have grown six-fold from $2.5 billion ten years ago to $16.5 billion. Turning to exports and new markets has enabled the foodstuffs sector to increase its exports from $2 billion to $6.7 billion.

Very high potential
The performance of many sectors in Turkey falls way below comparative sectors in other countries... In fact, rather than being a cause for pessimism, this is a sign that these sectors will grow even more rapidly in the future. This situation also applies to the education sector, whose private schools, universities and crammer courses have reached a volume of $6 billion. Can Gülan, the board chair of the Union of Turkish Private Schools, says that in many foreign countries private schools have a share of 20-25 percent of the education sector and that in Turkey the rate is still at 3.2 percent. Gülan believes that this shows that the value of the sector will rise in the future. Another of the sectors which is performing below its potential is telecommunications. Even though the number of mobile telephone subscribers in Turkey has passed 64 million, it is still behind Europe. Adil Zafer Müftüoğlu, the head of the Association for All Telecommunications' Businesspersons (TÜTED), says: "In Turkey the mobile penetration rate is 87.9 percent. In comparison, in EU countries this rate stands at 126 percent."