Don’t do business, mind the (gender) gap
Everyone is discussing the impact of U.S. monetary policy on Turkish assets. They are missing the forest in favor of the trees: Two reports released this week highlight the real weaknesses of the Turkish economy.
âÄ°Å yapmaâ can mean either âdoing businessâ or âdonât do businessâ in Turkish. The World Bankâs latest âDoing Businessâ report, which was released on Oct. 29, explains this double meaning. In the reportâs rankings, which are formed by analyzing âregulations that apply to an economyâs businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes and resolving insolvency,â Turkey is 55th among 189 countries.
In a press release going over the results, Martin Raiser, the Bankâs Country Director for Turkey, sounded positive, underlining that Turkeyâs rank was âslightly down from 51 last yearâ and the country scored âlargely as expected for an upper middle-income country.â He explained Turkeyâs worsening relative position with the increase in minimal capital requirements in 2013, which made starting a business considerably more difficult.
I personally do not share Raiserâs optimism. Turkey has been stuck at more or less the same rank ever since the first Doing Business report was published 12 years ago, roughly when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power. But maybe he was comparing the results to those of the other report of the week, the World Economic Forumâs Global Gender Gap Report.
This study measures the size of the gender equality gap and ranks countries in four areas: Economic participation and opportunity, education, political empowerment and, health and survival. Turkey is ranked 125th, dropping from last...
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