The plan can be considered quite a detailed document containing strong commitments. The emphasis on enhancing the realm and depth of the private sector-led market economy; improving democratic standards; and improving welfare of the lower segments of society are the major components of the new action plan. Moreover, I am fully satisfied with the plan's understanding of the sources of sustainable welfare and living standards. According to the new action plan, the competitiveness of a country and high living standards can be derived mainly from productivity increases, not from repressing real wages at the expense of laborers, artificial devaluation of local currency and fueling growth via inflationary pressures.
As a matter of fact, I was expecting the plan to create a fertile environment of discussion pertaining to the program's capacity for enhancing Turkey's growth potential, raising the country's competitiveness in the long run, etc. Unfortunately it has become evident once again that the political culture of Turkey is still addicted to abusing and consuming symbolic issues rather than talking in concrete terminology.
For instance, the bulk of the new action plan has already evaporated and almost all concentration has been focused on the government decision to move the Turkish Central Bank to İstanbul, after which public banks would follow suit. According to the Republican People's Party (CHP), this decision shows that the current AK Party government is dedicated to eliminating the culture, institutions and the mentality of the modern secular republic so that in the long term the infrastructure of a fundamentalist regime is prepared. This view can not be confined only to the CHP. A strongly organized minority group comprised of a fundamentalist secular bloc shares the same "anxieties."
On the other hand, businessmen from across the political spectrum strongly support the government plan for relocating the central bank. Unlike the CHP, their motivation is completely economic. For those who support the government decision, this will enhance opportunities for the central bank, as well as state-owned banks, to learn more of a market mentality. It will also improve the chance for public banks to be sold at a higher market price through privatization; banks will be able to access highly qualified human resources much more easily. Besides these considerations, İstanbul would become the financial center at the conjuncture of three continents, bringing big returns in terms of improving tourism, congresses and meetings, etc.
From my viewpoint, however, in the relocation of the central bank we must concentrate on other parameters such as the environment, traffic and skyrocketing land prices. As has been seen, the capacity of the city has already been exceeded in terms of available infrastructure.
To remind you what happened in Tokyo, which became a global financial center: Despite the existing well-organized metro system, Tokyo became home to the world's worst traffic mess. Land and office prices increased dramatically, a process triggered by multiple factors. As a result of this, Japanese industry lost its comparative advantages due to augmented operational costs.
As a result, at the first stage Japanese manufacturing firms started emigrating to other cheap Asian countries; at the second stage other firms in the service sector moved to other cities. More interestingly, in the final stage the Japanese started thinking about moving not only the central bank, but also the capital of Japan to other cities, the luckiest candidate being Nagoya, a "Toyota city." However, it seems the Japanese have taken a long break from the search for a new capital because of the huge market correction for past mistakes. That is to say, the Japanese economy was dramatically hit by the early 1990s bursting of the bubble economy, the effects of which lasted more than a decade and some aspects of which continue to be felt even today.
What I would like to note finally is that, unless a sound plan is made to relocate the manufacturing industry from Marmara region, İstanbul has the potential to jeopardize the future of national competitiveness by poisoning the environment and by raising costs for the sector.
