Turkey's poverty rate drops 10% in ten years

The latest figures from the World Bank show that the poverty rate in Turkey has dropped by 10 per cent over the past ten years.

The bank’s Country Director for Turkey, Martin Raiser, said on Tuesday that the national per capita income has not advanced significantly in the period from 1960 until 1990. “However,” he said on the sidelines of a meeting of the Chamber of Industry in the southern Turkish region of Gaziantep, “as of 2001, these rates began to change and began approaching European and American rates.”

Raiser pointed out that the official poverty line is $2.5 per day; the number of people currently living at that level in Turkey is less than 5 per cent of the total population, he said, whereas 10 years ago it was 16 per cent.

The World Bank official stressed that the transformation projects implemented in Turkey during the past period provide “a model for many countries in the region”. He noted that the Turkish government has set a series of goals to achieve by the year 2023.

Stressing the importance of foreign trade to achieve the great economic transformation that has taken place in Turkey, Raiser expressed confidence in the government’s ability and policies to overcome all the difficulties in the way of progress and prosperity.