TR Foreign Policy & Geopolitics

[B_A]

Apparently we imported 2 billion dollars worth of petroleum products from Greece.

How? And why?

Seems they had the facility.

https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/refined-petroleum/reporter/grc#about
EXPORTSIn 2021, Greece exported $23.1B in Refined Petroleum, making it the 11th largest exporter of Refined Petroleum in the world. At the same year, Refined Petroleum was the 1st most exported product in Greece. The main destination of Refined Petroleum exports from Greece are: Lebanon ($2.62B), Libya ($2.2B), Turkey ($2.06B), Italy ($1.51B), and South Korea ($1.49B).
The fastest growing export markets for Refined Petroleum of Greece between 2020 and 2021 were Lebanon ($1.88B), Turkey ($1.58B), and Libya ($1.55B).
IMPORTSIn 2021, Greece imported $6.53B in Refined Petroleum, becoming the 30th largest importer of Refined Petroleum in the world. At the same year, Refined Petroleum was the 2nd most imported product in Greece. Greece imports Refined Petroleum primarily from: Russia ($2.41B), Egypt ($1.06B), Turkey ($663M), Italy ($428M), and Israel ($403M).
The fastest growing import markets in Refined Petroleum for Greece between 2020 and 2021 were Russia ($1.1B), Egypt ($902M), and Turkey ($557M).

 

[what]

Apparently we imported 2 billion dollars worth of petroleum products from Greece.

How? And why?

Sometimes people need to step outside and breathe in fresh air instead of information war on social media.
Greece is a neighbouring country and economy. Of course we will be importing products from Greece.

 

[Heartbang]

Of course we will be importing products from Greece.

I'd prefer we'd not.

 

[Rooxbar]

It's a matter of geography and the position of refineries and transportation costs.

 

[B_A]

I'd prefer we'd not.

You must know Turkish businessmen are the group who Unpatriotic。

They even don’t want to develop any domestic brand.

 

[what]

You must know Turkish businessmen are the group who Unpatriotic。

They even don’t want to develop any domestic brand.

And the millions of tourists that go to Greece every year also /s.
I pity people thinking only in black and white.

 

[Rodeo]

Apparently we imported 2 billion dollars worth of petroleum products from Greece.

How? And why?

@Nilgiri had a post, detailing the causes of our chronic trade deficit where he touches on the issue with Turkish refineries (or lack thereof rather) in the Turkish Economy section.

 

[AWP]

You must know Turkish businessmen are the group who Unpatriotic。

I remember my ex-boss who is a big Ataturk lover and in every room not less than 3 pictures of him . He used to tells us stories about the independence war and how evil Greece was , he always insult Greece and made a policy that this company will never conduct any business in Greece .

At the same time this son of bitch have a house in Mykonos and his instagram is full of pictures of him and his turkish friends partying in bars with Greece women or maybe whores .

He is a giga cunt

 

[B_A]

And the millions of tourists that go to Greece every year also /s.
I pity people thinking only in black and white.

Our tourism is not deficit
Trade is

 

[Nilgiri]

@Nilgiri had a post, detailing the causes of our chronic trade deficit where he touches on the issue with Turkish refineries (or lack thereof rather) in the Turkish Economy section.

It's here for reference: https://defencehub.live/threads/economy-updates.112/page-217#post-281311

Summary of it is its better to focus on investment in core industries first over real estate.

Any country (just like any collective or individual entity in general) wants to have maximum bargaining strength relative to others.

In the economic realm w.r.t foreign flows (investment to help direct your trade competitiveness later), this applies to the goods and service price elasticities involved.

i.e the balance of where you are in buyers and sellers market relative to world.

You want your export sectors to have as inelastic demand from world as possible (they will buy from you no matter change in price, i.e world has no easy substitituion and competition is low from others in what you produce) and also have your imports as elastic as possible (you easily change who you buy from, or easily stop importing all together with no effect on local internal supply and provision w.r.t price changes, i.e easy substitution and maximum competition).

Conversely the reverse is extremely damaging to bargaining strength of a country: highly inelastic imports (have to buy from world no matter what) and highly elastic exports (world easily switches among many suppliers that are not you if your price increases).

The extremes do no exist for any country, it is a spectrum in the end. But any country can improve its hand if it knows what its doing w.r.t its institutions, analysts and top tier bureaucrats etc.

Core industries like oil refining take lot of time, resources and commitment to improve their robustness and are not easily politically harnessed compared to real estate. But they help in mitigating inelastic demand of energy your country has if its a large net importer....given the refined components will have steady demand both internally and externally as they are base core inputs needed by everything in world economy.

Turkey did not prioritise certain things over the last 20 years under Erdogan admin like it should have compared to things like real estate (and tourism) which are much more elastic in demand from world market.

The investment situation (raw levels and then component qualitative ones in FDI, FPI, Capital formation etc) to begin with for these couple decades, especially 2nd one was nowhere near where it needed to be for Turkish development, income levels along with its ideal positioning at the quad junction (Europe - Middle East - Russia and Mediterranean).

 

[B_A]

It's here for reference: https://defencehub.live/threads/economy-updates.112/page-217#post-281311

Summary of it is its better to focus on investment in core industries first over real estate.

Any country (just like any collective or individual entity in general) wants to have maximum bargaining strength relative to others.

In the economic realm w.r.t foreign flows (investment to help direct your trade competitiveness later), this applies to the goods and service price elasticities involved.

i.e the balance of where you are in buyers and sellers market relative to world.

You want your export sectors to have as inelastic demand from world as possible (they will buy from you no matter change in price, i.e world has no easy substitituion and competition is low from others in what you produce) and also have your imports as elastic as possible (you easily change who you buy from, or easily stop importing all together with no effect on local internal supply and provision w.r.t price changes, i.e easy substitution and maximum competition).

Conversely the reverse is extremely damaging to bargaining strength of a country: highly inelastic imports (have to buy from world no matter what) and highly elastic exports (world easily switches among many suppliers that are not you if your price increases).

The extremes do no exist for any country, it is a spectrum in the end. But any country can improve its hand if it knows what its doing w.r.t its institutions, analysts and top tier bureaucrats etc.

Core industries like oil refining take lot of time, resources and commitment to improve their robustness and are not easily politically harnessed compared to real estate. But they help in mitigating inelastic demand of energy your country has if its a large net importer....given the refined components will have steady demand both internally and externally as they are base core inputs needed by everything in world economy.

Turkey did not prioritise certain things over the last 20 years under Erdogan admin like it should have compared to things like real estate (and tourism) which are much more elastic in demand from world market.

The investment situation (raw levels and then component qualitative ones in FDI, FPI, Capital formation etc) to begin with for these couple decades, especially 2nd one was nowhere near where it needed to be for Turkish development, income levels along with its ideal positioning at the quad junction (Europe - Middle East - Russia and Mediterranean).

Until the recent year,Turkish real estate was not so expensive.China done far much in real estate.

I think the problem is the lack of western investment and The private company owner dont want to invest in brand or technology.

Actually the public section done not bad.

Turkiye is not a communist country,erdogan cant force the private section to invest.TOGG was what he can do.

 

[Nilgiri]

Until the recent year,Turkish real estate was not so expensive.China done far much in real estate.

I think the problem is the lack of western investment and The private company owner dont want to invest in brand or technology.

Actually the public section done not bad.

Turkiye is not a communist country,erdogan cant force the private section to invest.TOGG was what he can do.

I have been following Turkish investment flows for some time.

Whatever the price was like, too much investment (and debt, loans and so on) went to real estate instead of production oriented sectors.

Studying Turkish economy first needs look at its gross fixed capital formation.

This rate was very low (lower than 20%) until the late 1980s. i.e Turkiye missed out on lot of things from cold war advantage.

1990s were a turbulent period while capital formation increased finally to 20 - 30% range (to set up the base for what Turkey has now).

There was a near economic collapse in late 90s and early 2000s that brought AKP to power with mandate to address it and again capital formation rebounded by mid 2000s to close to 30%.

But it never achieved solid 30%+ territory and there were lot of large dips to low 20% again (08 world recession and now current AKP induced economic malaise).

You need 30 or 40% range consistently to really push comprehensive investment needed.

Then you can look at what foreign investment also went to in Turkiye, its not enough and not directed well.

The export and import composition right now shows the results for yourself.

If you are importing refined energy from Greece (and number of other countries) instead of using that same money to say import factory equipment from capital provider from FDI they put in earlier (that would support value addition and export capacity much more directly), that simply means you prioritised things wrongly for longer period of time....you didnt look at core base inputs enough and processing to value addition in the supply chain to make it robust as possible in the base.

This is precisely the reason why Turkiye has HALF the forex level now for same amount of production (GDP) it estimates for 2020-2023 compared to 2010 - 2013.

The core input sectors always need dedicated attention and then the next layer of the onion around them (factories, manufacturing) next....there are not very many service industries in Turkiye that have inelastic demand to bypass this.

 

[Nilgiri]

Turkiye is not a communist country,erdogan cant force the private section to invest.TOGG was what he can do.

Bro, we (Turkish core membership here, myself and others) already talked/debated about this over 100's of pages in the economy thread.

Its not about being communist like its strict command economy or something.

Its about making competent policy decisions and creating strong balanced investment climate (yes govt and bureaucracy is large portion of this, they set and apply the legal framework).

If you have huge political favouritism, corporatism and cronyism where there is easy money where the loans and resources must flow to first (short term yipee!) above things that are tougher and more "long term" , Turkiye wont get the holistic breakthrough a lot of you want (why cant larger economy do as well as TB2 export etc etc) and be stuck with huge pain and costs by all these bad decisions accumulating now.

Govt in any free market country has a role to play in being tough where it needs to be tough (consistent application of rule of law equally and making sound law and administration to begin with along with defence of the country and core collective infrastructure objectives)....without over imposing into things businesses and individuals are then best left to analyse and manage.

You get these things reversed in even 1% amount, thats 10% pain for 10% longer time you needed.

 

[B_A]

Bro, we (Turkish core membership here, myself and others) already talked/debated about this over 100's of pages in the economy thread.

Its not about being communist like its strict command economy or something.

Its about making competent policy decisions and creating strong balanced investment climate (yes govt and bureaucracy is large portion of this, they set and apply the legal framework).

If you have huge political favouritism, corporatism and cronyism where there is easy money where the loans and resources must flow to first (short term yipee!) above things that are tougher and more "long term" , Turkiye wont get the holistic breakthrough a lot of you want (why cant larger economy do as well as TB2 export etc etc) and be stuck with huge pain and costs by all these bad decisions accumulating now.

Govt in any free market country has a role to play in being tough where it needs to be tough (consistent application of rule of law equally and making sound law and administration to begin with along with defence of the country and core collective infrastructure objectives)....without over imposing into things businesses and individuals are then best left to analyse and manage.

You get these things reversed in even 1% amount, thats 10% pain for 10% longer time you needed.

I just meant Turkiye (and Indian too) government havent enough abilty and power to push the production oriented sectors.

Didnt must be communist but the in east asian countires(Japan ,Korea,China,Taiwan,Singapore) government had much control of economy than us.

In case As a private businessman, real estate to much easy to do.If the government not to push,noone will go to production oriented sectors.Maybe that s a weakness of democracy country because they always please the voters,Japan and Korea was democracy but mainly control by Zaibatsu/Chaebol
.

Seems 1980s Japan and the nowsday Chinese eased some control on real estate then their real estate rush to sky.

 

[B_A]

I have been following Turkish investment flows for some time.

Whatever the price was like, too much investment (and debt, loans and so on) went to real estate instead of production oriented sectors.

Studying Turkish economy first needs look at its gross fixed capital formation.

This rate was very low (lower than 20%) until the late 1980s. i.e Turkiye missed out on lot of things from cold war advantage.

1990s were a turbulent period while capital formation increased finally to 20 - 30% range (to set up the base for what Turkey has now).

There was a near economic collapse in late 90s and early 2000s that brought AKP to power with mandate to address it and again capital formation rebounded by mid 2000s to close to 30%.

But it never achieved solid 30%+ territory and there were lot of large dips to low 20% again (08 world recession and now current AKP induced economic malaise).

You need 30 or 40% range consistently to really push comprehensive investment needed.

Then you can look at what foreign investment also went to in Turkiye, its not enough and not directed well.

The export and import composition right now shows the results for yourself.

If you are importing refined energy from Greece (and number of other countries) instead of using that same money to say import factory equipment from capital provider from FDI they put in earlier (that would support value addition and export capacity much more directly), that simply means you prioritised things wrongly for longer period of time....you didnt look at core base inputs enough and processing to value addition in the supply chain to make it robust as possible in the base.

This is precisely the reason why Turkiye has HALF the forex level now for same amount of production (GDP) it estimates for 2020-2023 compared to 2010 - 2013.

The core input sectors always need dedicated attention and then the next layer of the onion around them (factories, manufacturing) next....there are not very many service industries in Turkiye that have inelastic demand to bypass this.

Actually in post-1980s the rise of east asian industrial export made other developing countries suffering.

India Turkey and south america,east south asia industry cant match the east asian(China Korea Japan Taiwan) and under heavy pressure.

Chinese product are keeping defeat us in EUmarket anddomestic market

 

[Ryder]

I remember my ex-boss who is a big Ataturk lover and in every room not less than 3 pictures of him . He used to tells us stories about the independence war and how evil Greece was , he always insult Greece and made a policy that this company will never conduct any business in Greece .

At the same time this son of bitch have a house in Mykonos and his instagram is full of pictures of him and his turkish friends partying in bars with Greece women or maybe whores .

He is a giga cunt

Cant blame the guy to be honest Greek women are beautiful lmaoo

 

[Ryder]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1703039267251916937

The sooner people stop blaming Erdogan for everything the better it is.

 

[Bozan]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1703039267251916937

The sooner people stop blaming Erdogan for everything the better it is.

A guard dog sleeps outside, he can never enter the house and sleep with the owner. Erdogan wanted transactional relationships and to flout European interests, they have made him a guard dog.

There is no fair in geopolitics.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1703004487277854792

 

[Nilgiri]

Actually in post-1980s the rise of east asian industrial export made other developing countries suffering.

India Turkey and south america,east south asia industry cant match the east asian(China Korea Japan Taiwan) and under heavy pressure.

Chinese product are keeping defeat us in EUmarket anddomestic market

I don't agree.

Take for example my home state Tamil Nadu (TN) in India.

TN car exports are about 380,000 (India total is around 700,000) in latest year.

TN population about 76 million, i.e why does 5% of india population export more than half the cars it does?

Extrapolate TN per capita car exports to china population, china would export around 7 million cars

Instead china exported around 3 million cars in latest year.

Essentially TN is exporting more than twice per capita than China in cars.

i.e what did my state do that the heavily populated northern states of india did not do?, in that effectively total India exports is only 10% of what it could be as result?

if any place undertands the onion layers well and develops the onion well (from inside out), it will do well....

i.e China isnt some unmovable phenomenon if you do the analysis on labour profile and comparative advantage diligently enough w.r.t investment.

Its all exactly how deng started the process in the 1980s and tiger east asia before that.

With Turkey the easiest way to approach it is look at export profile and what are the highest value addition things turkey exports
then ask why it isnt exporting twice that and having a larger market share of it than it does?

The capability/capacity is all obviously there (i.e its obviously making and selling them, people are buying it in billions of dollars worth in say europe), so why wasn't the throughput increased much more than it is now?

Simply the investment wasn't sufficient (after all the hard work done to get the initial industries unlocked).

Instead too much went to subsidies, loans and flows in less optimal things that the govt induced in other sectors that are more dead end and elastic in demand. Erdogan admin dropped the ball last 20 years on too many things.

 

[B_A]

We should see the whole country not a state.
Türkiye and India still in large trade deficit we have to deal with it.

China and other east Asia as a country is in trade surplus