THE CONTENT OF THE TRADE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN TURKEY AND THE UNITED KINGDOM IN THE 21st CENTURY

Abstract

Turkey, due to its location, is a trade bridge between Europe and Asia. It trades on both continents in an integrated manner. It is an important power in the region with its increasing population. Its population, which is more than 80 million today, is expected to increase to over 90 million by 2035. Turkey is an economically developing country and its Gross National Product (GNP) has shown an increasing performance over the years. This has led to an increase in demand for a range of goods and services. Therefore, the fact that it has a developing and expanding market has attracted the attention of international organizations and companies. In addition, the Turkish economy has grown rapidly in the last 25 years, reaching a GNP of approximately 780 billion USD in 2015. Governments that came to power after the 2000-2001 crisis took a pro-business stance and grew the economy by over 7 percent each year between 2003 and 2007. Turkey has followed a more integrated policy with international markets and has harmonized many laws and regulations, especially foreign trade and finance, with European Union standards and greatly expanded access to the public. Due to the economic and political developments experienced in the following years, this increase slowed down and some problems started to come to light with the political and economic wars experienced globally. However, its commercial and political relations with the United Kingdom have developed in parallel with these developments. The volume of foreign trade between the two countries has expanded and cultural, political, military and economic developments have matured in a way that complements each other. In our study, we tried to examine these developments between the two countries, especially from an economic point of view, together with the important events that shed light on our recent past.