Turkish businessmen

[lampron]

Turkish businessmen have moved on from selling kebabs, figs, hazelnuts and apricots to selling energy!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/11/turkish-power-ship-lights-on-lebanon?INTCMP=SRCH

Where are the Armenian businessmen?

In the ottoman empire, Armenian traders and merchants became successful and helped the ottoman treasury with their taxes

Today Greeks and Greek Cypriots are in economic depression, but not long ago they would laugh at Turks for their alleged backwardness

Turkish construction and retail firms were one of the first foreign companies to enter the former Soviet space while Greeks and Armenians worried about the risks of doing business there (including in Armenia) and decided mostly not to invest.

Roles have been reversed. 100 years ago, Greeks, Armenians, Je-w-s, Macedonians, Albanians etc were the trading class in the ottoman empire. Turks and Kurds were not active in trade or industry

[TomServo]

Re: Turkish businessmen

Where are the Armenian businessmen?

Massacred by the Ottoman Empire; eliminated by the Soviet Union.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Turkish businessmen

Massacred by the Ottoman Empire; eliminated by the Soviet Union.

And the few left, driven to dispair and migration and eventual assimilation by the oligarchs.

But Turkey does well because of its size and its population growth. Huge internal market, always growing internal market, always plenty of cheap new labour so that the older workforce can upgrade and get wealthier. Once Turkey runs out of natural resources, it's xxxxed. That's why it wants into the EU. Even an idiot can do well in Turkey, as long as 2 new idiots come along so that the first idiot can move up in the world a bit. And then those 2 new idiots need another 4 idiots to be born and bred, and so on.

[lampron]

Re: Turkish businessmen

And the few left, driven to dispair and migration and eventual assimilation by the oligarchs.

But Turkey does well because of its size and its population growth. Huge internal market, always growing internal market, always plenty of cheap new labour so that the older workforce can upgrade and get wealthier. Once Turkey runs out of natural resources, it's xxxxed. .

Turkish firms have been upgrading hotels in Minsk (Belarus), and in Yalta on the Black Sea coast the skyline is dominated by construction projects attributed to 'Turkish businessmen'. Turkish companies have expanded into IT and outsourcing...none of these depend on natural resources

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Turkish businessmen

Turkish firms have been upgrading hotels in Minsk (Belarus), and in Yalta on the Black Sea coast the skyline is dominated by construction projects attributed to 'Turkish businessmen'. Turkish companies have expanded into IT and outsourcing...none of these depend on natural resources

The foundation of these companies will built on work they do in Turkey, work which is sustained by its massive population growth. In a year, more appartments blocks are built in a single average-sized Turkish city than in your average-sized European country. So there is always work for these companies (though probably not as profitable as these foreign contracts), and there is always a ready supply of cheap labour they can utilise at short notices. Again, for IT work, you have a vast urbanised population which requires IT technology to function and which is starting from scratch and going straight to state-of-the art, and you have a ready supply of recruits you can pay very little to get.

When I was first in Turkey in the 1980s all the shops had hand-painted signs, often done by people who couldn't even write in a straight line. Now, in the planning offices of Turkish cities there will be plans in which their present-day city grows maybe two to three times bigger in the near future, with the new stuff laid out in districts with massive appartment blocks and with all the required schools and mosques marked, and linked to the center by tramways or subways. All that is done at the expense of environmental devastation - there is a limit to how much there is to destroy. Once the last river is damned, the last coal mine opened, the last unirrigated valley irrigated, Turkey will face a crisis because the population growth will continue regardless (its Islamist government requires that to continue) and the only way out will be EU membership and massive migration to Europe.

[Sip]

Re: Turkish businessmen

Where are the Armenian businessmen? ... I think they are too busy exporting bananas: http://ditord.com/2008/07/23/wow-arm...rting-bananas/

[lampron]

Re: Turkish businessmen

Where are the Armenian businessmen? ... I think they are too busy exporting bananas: http://ditord.com/2008/07/23/wow-arm...rting-bananas/

I hope their dream of controlling the world-wide banana business comes true one day!

Meanwhile with Iraq's economy still in a mess Turkey is the leading trading partner of Iraq, supplying it everything from building materials to processed food

Turkish businessmen are busy making Turkey a top destination for low cost dental treatment and cosmetic surgery

Foreign holidaymakers returning from Turkey keep saying how friendly the Turks are to visitors. They don't have the same comments about Greece and Greek Cyprus..

The Tashnag, Hunchag and Ramgavar political parties as well as the Armenian church will be busy telling each other that Armenia was the first nation to convert Christianity and the first country in the modern era to suffer a genocide (and most important of all organizing social parties where bishops will necessarily be invited). Must do wonders for Armenia's economy