I have been working in the Grand Bazaar for 22 years. Business was really good between the years of 1975-1995. Our sales to tourist customers was about 100 per cent at those times. But today compared to that time our sales have decreased by 30 per cent.
Those who came from Iron Curtain countries used to buy goods in large amounts. They still do this but they buy in small amounts. Terrorism in İstanbul and the earthquake of 17th August caused a decline in our sales. We don't know what to do now. The economic crises emerged after a period of stagnancy in economy. Foreign exchange rate was doubled and our money lost its value. Despite what was written in the newspapers, vital expences like rents there hasn't been any decrease. On the contrary they increased. In fact our incomes have decreased. This has put us in a very difficult situation.
I guess that this crises caused the closing of more than a 100 shops in the bazaar. Laleli market has ruined the textile merchants. I don't want to blame them, but a few of them sold very bad quality products.
Thus we suffered as a result of this action. Both the sales of qualified tradesmen and the ones in the Grand Bazaar decreased. We are still suffering. I can't say anything about how our country will overcome the economic crises, but I can say this about the Grand Bazaar: the tourists should be treated with distinction and respect.
The problems of transportation should be solved. The tourist can hardly find his way to the bazaar. It's said that the bazaar salesmen are deceiving the tourists. That shouln't happen. The foreigners are aware of the prices in Turkey. You can not sell a 10 lira item at a price of 15 liras to them. But this happens in Laleli. They even sold trousers without zippers.As a Turkish citizen we got used to living with these kinds of crises. This will finally end as it has happened before. We lived the earhquake of 17th of August and we hardly had any sales for a year. The closing of the shops which I mentioned before happened after the earthquake.
After having been through such a disaster and having overcome it, there isn't any problem we can't handle. I believe that we'll overcome this crisis as welle. We will overcome the crises by waiting.
The only duty that the government should have is to work on tourism. If casinos were opened under strict control our sales would be higher.

We have been working on gold for three generations and I've been in the Grand Bazaar since 1976. I worked in the Grand Bazaar Merchants' Association in 1978 as well. At that time I served atthe board for two terms. I have spent the best days of my life here. I grew up with the culture of this place. Working here is like catching a disease. When one compares the newly opened shopping malls, the conditions of the Bazaar are bad. We work under very unhealthy circumstances. The atmosphere here is very different too. Any problem in the economy or politics from outside effects the bussines here. The importance of Kapalıçarşı is that it's a reflection of Turkey. You can see tradesmen and costumers from every nation, every religion and every race.
The rate of mark and dollar is rated here in a very narrow street for years. In aspect, after 1990 tourism incom gained a lot, but still the bussines here has started to get worse. With the earhtquake of Augost 17, the crisis of November and Feburary things even got worse. Despite all these negative things we are in a better condition than the last year. There's a obvious recovery. After the Feburary crisis, the foriegn currency doubled and it was very hard for us. We're all wondering what is going to happen in the future.
Turkey lived in a virtual economy for 30-35 years. We lived a richness which really didn't exist. Although there was no real income, a large amount of money entered the country and was spent. This created a virtual richness. Our relations with the West was good and we borrowed a lot. Today we are suffering those debts. Then again we were always in debt. At the begining of 1980 we had 40 billion dollars in foriegn debt alone. Today it's 250 billion dollars. Who spent this money? Everybody, honest or dishonest spent it. Those who have embazzaled banks, obtained illegal credits. And to the people who had the right to spend this money, for example to the farmers, the goverment gave 200 dollars to their 100 dollar crop. These are only examples. In conclusion we asked for this crisis all together.. Now the world doesn't want to give us any money, cause they are afriad of not getting it back.
What happens next? It all depends on us. We must use our resources wisely and spend the credits for the right things. Being a small tradesman, I can imagine what Turkey should do to get over these problems. The goverment knows it as well. But there is something else that they know and that is, if they start this process they will lose their places in the Turkish politics. So i don't belive that anybody will bring this process to life.

I have been working in the Bazaar since 1971. Before 1980 was the best times as far as the business at the Bazaar is concerned. Even till the Gulf War things were not so bad. After that war business has continually declined. But even the economic crisis of 1994 did not effect us as much as the present crisis had done. We got over that crisis within 3 months. The so-called 'suitcase' trade by Russian tourists helped us recover at that time.
Perhaps the worst hit sector in the present crisis is the textile industry. This is not valid only for the Grand Bazaar. The ready-to-wear and textile industries in the whole country is deeply effected. A few months after the earthquake tourists have started to come back. What hurt us the most were the latest November and February crisis. Today business is virtually at a stand still. However the 3.600 businessmen in many different trades, working in the Grand Bazaar are relatively better off than the rest of the economy. Although many companies have had to shut down in Turkey, we have not had a single closure yet. I can even tell you that increase in the number of tourists since April has increased trade.
How did Turkey reach this point? The answer is wrong decision making on the part of the governments. To give an example: Prime Minister Ecevit's decisions to keep the dollar fixed over a long period of time and allowing later to float freely were both taken at very wrong times. These decisions laid a very heavy burden on manufacturers who had to import raw materials. In this duration Turkey could not adopt itsself to changing world prices. The solution to the problem is not one of confiding with the government. We have had confidence in previous government but our expectancies were never met. If a government in which we could confide is ready to take over and solve the problems it is most welcome.
To get out of the crisis factories which have stopped their production must now get back to work even if there are no profits involved. The most important step is to curb unemployement. The government should give up hope of recovery through exports. The domestic market must be activated again.
We all were very happy with the decisions taken by the previous Minister of Tourism, Mr. Erkan Mumcu. We are not able to judge the new minister's capabilities as he still is new to us. But we are seriously in need of a campaign to introduce Turkey to the rest of the world.

I've been working in the Grand Bazaar since 1970. The crisis have put us in a bad situation just like the others. We no longer work to earn money but make the day. We spend what we earn. I think the situation of the tradesmen in Turkey is bad. I don't know where this cost of living will lead us.
As a textile firm we work both with the local and the foreign customers. Between 70's and the end of the 80's our most important customers were the local ones.
The changing economic condition, unfortunately took them away from us. Among our customers, the local ones make up 5 per cent of it. In the recent years our business have become dependent on tourists. This is a very hard situation. If there are tourists we earn money, or else we sit and wait. We should have a solution for this.
The increasing currency exchange rates and the increase of inflation as a result of these the two economic crises have effected us all just like the others. You buy goods for 9 liras and the next day it is 10 liras. With yesterdays profit you buy new goods. This has become a vicious circle. As I said before we can only save today.
There is nothing we can do individually to overcome this crises. We have to cut our expensesother than the necessary ones. What can we do other than that? The government should be making new attempts. Even if this last governmet is not the only one responsible for this crisis, they should find a solution.
Even though the Grand Bazaar is a place which controls Turkish economy, little interest is shown here. With these hard situations the tradesmen can't make new steps. It's now the governmet's job. Because the tradesmen can only save today and doesn't know about tomorrow, he is spending from his savings.
The government and the politicians are only interested in themselves. They don't care about the tradesmen or the people who want to work here. They are put aside.
When it's the election time they come here and pretend they care about us. They ask us about our problems and how we can solve them. So we tell them.
But after the elections we don't see their faces again. This not the way to handle things. How do they expect us to trust them when they are acting in a two faced manner.

I've been working in the Grand Bazaar since 1969. Then I started to sell touristic gifts. And since 1980 I'm in the leather bussines. I was born here, I grew up here and I will die here. I don't know what it's like to work at another place. We are a big family here. Of course we have our arguments. But we are only doing what a tradesman has to do.
The major thing wich effected our bussines was in 1997, when the Russians left. Since then we haven't been able to recover. Being a touristic place we got effected by any problem on the world. For example the terorist attack on U.S.A effected us a lot. And with foriegn curency doubling after the November and Feburary crisis things got worse. However as long as tourists come to Turkey we don't suffer these problems and our bussinesses are okay. Despite today when Turkey is struggling with the crisis, if the tourist potantial is high at the Grand Bazaar it shows a very different portrait of Turkey. Well, we saw the exactly the opposite as well. I mean, when everything was okay for Turkey but the tourist rate was low here. At times like this our bussines is quite low.
What must we do in order not to be effected by this situation? First of all we have to turn to local customers and do local business. With last year's and this year's crisis we understood that we cannot go on just by selling to tourists. To be honest, as tradesmen of the Grand Bazaar we don't act organized as we ought to be. We have problems with entegration with the world. Of course this is a matter of culture and education. We grew up here and we only know this place. We don't know professional trading. We have to overcome these problems to deal stronger with the crisisis. At last crisis all we could do was to sit and wait. Because we didn't have anything else to do. Our trading capacity is easily effected with the daily changes. We have to get rid of this. The Ministry of Tourism should show more interest. I don't know what should be done for advertising, but to provide stability to the bussines here we must do something to bring the tourists here.
I don't believe that the goverment shows a lot of interest in the Grand Bazaar. Even though they come here during the elections, later they forget everything. Despite being the center of the economy nothing is being done. I think it's a job for the young and experienced managers with a university degree. And we can help them with our knowledge. We come from the alay. We continue with what we see from our masters. We know that the world is changing and we have to catch up with it.

I started to work in the Grand Bazaar in 1980, and for the last 8 years I own an exchange office. I am one of the first here. The economic crisis that Turkey is faced with effected us a lot. The earthquake in 1999 also effected us. The business stopped, the economic problems started, everybody cared for himself only. After the earthquake, we were hit a second stime by November and February crises. Lack of capacity has emerged. Since the Grand Bazaar salesmen are going through hard times our business is also effected. Because they were changing their currency here. When this stopped we were all faced with economic trouble. Every business were faced with a visible decline. My biggest sorrow is that the media shows the exchange offices as the 'bogyman' towards the public. They created an image that we control currency rates and interests. Not only this situation effected our public relaitons, but also threatened our relations with the Central Bank.
In fact it's not hard to guess what kind of a consequences shall come out if there weren't any exchange offices. Then this money will pass on to other sources, will be bought and sold again. As a result the state will no longer take any taxes and some people gain undeserved income just like now.
Right now we are running a business that's completely legal. Our 150.000 marks stays in the Central Bank as a deposit. In the end of the year the bank changes this money into liras and does it without purifying it from the inflation. In spite of this fact, we don't want interest from this. The bank takes 45per cent of this money as tax. The peole who run this business illegally don't pay tax or insurance. They earn undeserved money. It's rather difficult for us to compete with them, thus we are in a vicious circle.
Other than these what effected our business is the tax number application. We now ask for tax number when a citizen comes here to exchange that exceeds 3.000 dollars, he naturally feels uneasy about it. In fact most of them stops the exchange and takes his money to change it in blackmarket. So this leads to great amount of tax loss.
I've been working here for 20 years. Today you can buy a shop here for 400,000 dollars which couln't be bought for one million dollars 20 years ago. With the building of the street cars tramp our roads are stuck. This effected our business. We are really badly effected by this. We were given promises about this situation by the officials, yet nothing has been done. As a matter of fact they only come here when it is the election time abd later they forget about us.
This situation cannot and must not carry on like this. It's not hurting us, it's hurting everybody.

I've been working at the Grand Bazaar since 1978. I produce goods from kilims and export them. In this manner my relationship with foreigners are very well.
The crisis in Turkey never effect the Grand Bazaar directly. The Grand Bazaar sells the 99 per cent of the handcrafts in Turkey.
The Grand Bazaar has gone through big crisis in the last three years. Especially the earthquake effected the tourist figures. But even that didn'nt lead to great economic losses.
It is a different world in Turkey. I could say that we are isolated in a economical way. If you look at big shopping malls around Istanbul you will see many shops have been closed down or bankrupted because of the crisis. Here at the Bazaar today you wont even find one closed shop.
But the worst were the August 17th earthquake and the time when Abdullah Öcalan was caught. For example I lost contact with 10-15 of my costumers. A long with these crisis the rapid rise of the inflation effected our exportations too. Because of this we couldn't employ a lot workers, we couldn't buy the kilim wich the women in Anatolia weaved, we couldn't buy leather from the factories in Tuzla. This effected the Turkish economy negativly.
We are small exporters even though we had a drop in our sales we didn't have face bankruptcy. We don't have heavy relations with banks anyway. So the rise of dollar didn't effect us in that aspect. The tradesmen of Grand Bazaar doesn't work with credits from the banks or from the goverment. The tradesmen give and take money from each other.
It seems a bit hard that Turkey will get through this crisis. To me, what we need is time. Time is the cure for everything. In my opinion this is the biggest reason of the crisis. What I wan't to say is that if a house has three rooms it has three televisions.
Could you beat the crisis under these circumstances? Everybody has to be honest now. Everybody from politicians to bussinesmen. Today everybody is in a contradiction; with their history, with what they say, with what they do. Their is nothing like this on any part of the world.
The gold you see here is made here at the back rooms of the Bazaar, in little workshops. 20 or 30 people work there. They make their living from the Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar buys nearly all of the handicrafts produced in Anatolia and sells it. This brings foriegn curency to the country.
If the Minister of Tourism doesn't know a foriegn language, and even doesn't know what tourism is, doesn't know about advertising nobody should expect us to move on. A minister should have a vision, he should know his country's competitors. The Foreign ministers have a lot to do on this issue.

We have been working in the Grand Bazaar since 1986. Since then I've seen that our biggest loss are local customers. European tourists have also decreased. They prefer Aegean and Mediterrenian locations. Today the Grand Bazaar is working with the Americans and the Southern Americans. There are two major reasons why the local customers have decreased. First economic situation have gone worse. Secondly jewellery shops around the Bazaar is competing heavily with us. There're jewellery shops in nearly every street now.
Here we have a serious transportation problem. Plus we still couldn't sort out the parking problem. The earthquake and the economic crises have minimized the local customers For example we used to work with the local customer in the past. Now we've lost 90 per cent of this amount. The most important customers of our jewellery shops used to be Turkish workers in Germany. When they came to Turkey they would shop great in amounts. Now the generation has changed. The new generation has little interest in gold . We lost that potential since their parents have already bought what they could have.
I don't think we should put the blame on only one government. This is an ongoing process. The high interest rates, the great debts that Turkey is faced with destroyed the country's economy. This has been an ongoing process since the 90's and had an explosion in 2000-2001. The wrong politics and structures have lead us here. The most important thing that should be done to recover the Grand Bazaar's business is the environment planning and solving the infrastructure problems. People don't want to come here because of the transportation and parking problems. We have been promised a lot about this issue. But the promises are not kept. It's our fault that we can't make good use of a 500 years old structure. Or else who wouldn't want to see here?
And we should solve the guide problem. The guides who bring tourists in this region slander the Bazaar and the salesmen. These are unbelievable fabrications. These effect our business. Either they don't bring the tourist here , or bring them at 6:30. And it is no good since the Bazaar closes at 7:00 p.m. These men , to make some extra money, take the tourists to the shops that they've made deal with. So they are slandering us, and the state. Because all our work is under the state's control.
The terrorism is USA will effect our business. Our best cusromers usually come in September and October. I don't think that they will come this year.
If something is not done urgently the Grand Bazaar will loose its trade in the near future. This will not just be a loss in economy but a loss in history and arts. Let's hope this does not happen.

I am a salesman in the Grand Bazaar since 1954. The biggest crises which I witnessed towas the time of 6-7 September events. These events destroyed our business. After these events the 1960, '70, '80 revolutions also had adverse effects on our business. Between these periods business was working out really well. Between the 80 Revolution and the Gulf War it was the busiest ever. We were very much effected by the Gulf war.
The economic crises in Turkey caused our local customers to decrease. Our sales decreased since the gold price was increasing in a direct ratio with that of the gold. The earnings of the local customers lost value while the gold price doubled. The income of the people increased by 10 to 20 per cent while the others price increased by 200 to 250 per cent.
The reason of the crises is not only the last government of course. There are problems which come from the past. Especially The high interest borrowings have put the economy in great trouble. We're far beyond our borderline. Today all the income of the country is gone for the intersts of the debts which we took before. The state no longer have money to spend on building schols, dams and roads.
They are taking debts and paying them back. In this situation it is not decreasing , but increasinf on a regular basis. Turkey should pay back all the debts. What should be done for this? I don't know if it is privatisation or anything else, but something should be done immediately. Or else we will even be missing these days, I 'm afraid.
They are not doing us any good when lending us money. They take it back with 10 per cent interest. In fact the ratio is even higher because of the inflation. The second thing that the state should do is that they should limit the expenses. These are heavy burdens laid on our shoulders. What can we do as the tradesmen to overcome this crisis? We are waiting. Our only advantage is that we do not have debts to banks. That's why we are the least effected. Because our capital is gold, it never loses value. But when the value of gold is increased people think I make a lot of profits. That's why the state takes excessive tax.
The Grand Bazaar is still the vital point of Turkey's economy. The currency rates and the price of gold is determined here. It's not possible to say that the government show the interest which this place deserves. The regional planning should be designed well enough to activate the bazaar economy.

I come from a family of goldsmiths. We as a family have been in the Grand Bazaar since 1970 and I have been running my own business here since 1980.
Even if there are even newer modern malls built in istanbul , the Grand Bazaar has no alternative. Because there is no alternative to history. History is history. Today you can't add any new shops to the Grand Bazaar. But places like Akmerkez shopping center you can always have new additions. As a matter of fact there is no attraction of these modern structures for the tourists. They have much better ones at where they come from. The agreement of malls in İstanbul with the guides and firms attracted tourists which as a result badly effected us. In time with the recently intoduced free floating currency rates and the opening of stock exchange, the local entrepreneour has been directed to these and turned his back to gold.
One of the most important reasons of why we lost the local customers is this. Gold has been seeen as a harm to economy by the state. The state found other ways to pull this money to economy. Today gold is only seen as a commodity.
The last terrorist attack to USA will be effecting us. We see that the new coming American tourists are depressed. The earthquakes and the economic crises has effected our business, but the Grand Bazaar is now only directed towards the foreign customers much more than the instability in Turkey. The world events are effecting our business. That's why I don't think that the November and the February crisis is not felt deeply by the Bazaar's merchants.
We are effected more by the attack in USA than these. This will sort itsself out within a month or so. In fact our customers who spend money come September and October. That's why I don't think we will be lucky this year. Because this last event will effect not only the Americans but the whole world. Even if they say the opposite, we'll suffer being a Muslim country.
As we see the crisis in Turkey, we worry about the future of the country and what can be done. But we go on living without knowing our future. We have to do this. We're in a waiting period while minimizing our expences.
I don't think we should blame only this government for this crisis. Even though I don't agree that there is no alternative for this government, under todays cirscumtances we should not go for an election because a gap in government for a month or so can lead the country to a disaster which is far beyond our imagination.
There isn't much we can do except to wait in patience and pray for the best. Let us hope that the gövernment takes the right steps so things don't get any worse.

We've been here for 3 generations. This is a 80 year old institution and I've been breathing the Grand Bazaar's air for 35 years.
People were effected by the economic crises according to their capacity. We were effected by the crisis because the Bazaar and the trade relations could'nt catch up with the changing circumstances. We are a community here. Those who are chosen to participate in this community should try to solve the problems of the Bazaar. Unfortunalty we don't speak up.
People think that nothing will happen to the Grand Bazaar. We always hide behind this belief and don't improve ourselves. And naturally every time we were faced with a new problem we hit the wall. The Grand Bazaar is being ignored and put back into the depths of history.
No one except the salesmen here is trying to protect the Grand Bazaar. This is a cultural problem. We'll leave this historical beauty to some strange people. As a historical country we have to realize this.
The earthquake of 17th of August didn't effect our business very much. The Grand Bazaar was advantageous because of its historical identity. Both the local and the foreign tourists didn't hesitate to come here because the Grand Bazaar managed to get out of the previous eartquakes without damage.
We also weren't effected by the November and the February crisis. But when the instability grew it began to hit us. There is a great loss in work capacity. People are now fighting just to stand on their own feet. What mostly effected us was the war in Macedonia. This war was the reason why we lost most of our customers coming from the Iron Curtain countries.
Far beyond this I can say that we should admit that we have enough work capacity to stay here compared to other tradesmen. Our position is a little better than the avarage Turkish standard. Our advantage is that tourits come here. Of course it would be meaningless to hope that people with 120.000.000 liras salary would come here for shopping.
To overcome Turkey's crisis the lack of communication between the state and the government should be ended. First we must have a concencus at home. More important than that there should bemutual trust between the government and the public.The investors should be helped. This is very very important. But I insist that those investors who are to be helped should only be those who are honest and not crooks.
We should not squander the country's sources. It is now time to make the best use of our resorces. We must make sure that not even a single penny is wasted. This is the only way we can come out of these crisis.

The earthquake, the crisis of November and Feburary deeeply effected our morales. It washed away the happines from people. This effected the bussines as well. The stagnation has been going on for 2 to 3 years now. The biggest reason for this crisis was the high rate interests on our debts. This has the same effect on people and the country. Turkey has to get rid of its foreign debts.
It's not easy to run away from the atmosphere that the crisis has brought. First of all we have to cut down our expenditures; especially those on high interest rates. For me this is the biggest problem Turkey has.
We borrow from other countries. And they keep the intrest rate high, because they know that there is a risk that we might not pay on time. But if their real ambition was to stabilize our economy they wouldn't be doing this.
Turkey should stand against this. We should cooperate with other countries. People should be encouraged and mobilized to increase production.
Measures must be taken to increase exports. We should postpone payments for domestic and foreign borrowing. If the goverment can't reduce the high numbers of employees it has, it should use them in more productive fields. The most important is to do these within a certain plan and without making any concession.
Turkey must solve the problems created by the contract tenders. Such tenders must be evaluated at their real costs and expences. The state mechanism in itsself is very sluggish. This vicious circle must se broken to allow for a smooth running of the bureucracy.
To achieve this we need honestand hard working people who know their business well. Most of the executive civil servants must be like this. Only this way can we stop corruption and get back on the right track.
The Grand Bazaar has a unique position in the Turkish economy. It's virtually a museum. The shop keepers must match up to the conditions of the modern world.
They must adopt new sales techniques, present better cirscumtances for the customers. The environment surrounding the Bazaar must also be reorganised allowing for green spaces, car parks, and easier access. The government should organise such efforts.

I have been working in the Grand Bazaar for 21 years now. With the recent crisis I lost in one month everything I gained over 20 years. We just remain helpless. Since we don't have a strong NGO, we can't have our cries heard. We have to get organized. The insufficiency of years of misgovernment is the sole reason for the recent crisis. This crisis was inevitable and is a result of 15 years of wrong decision making. The coalition government has helped expose the mechanisms which run the real economy. Figures which lead to illusions are no longer released. Thus we all see the bitter reality that we had long gone bankrupt. During Özal's time the Central Bank used to announce high foreign currency reserves. It now seems doubtful that we ever had this money. There was no mechanism to determine the degree of truth of any claim. That has all changed now; we are controlled by the IMF and the World Bank and other such institutions. It is now clear that the strong looking economy was actually hollow inside. During Özal's time volume of trade was at its peak. He had given confidence to the investors. When and where there is confidence things work out just fine. Today both domestic and foreign capital is acting very timid. Especially the new tax registration requirement has scared off all those who had set some money aside and are ready to invest. Proper governing of Turkey requires team work. If in a team of 10 only two are thinking in the right direction and if the rest is in opposition will not solve any problem. If the economy is to recover, the bureaucrats must act independent and use their authority without any outside influences. Corruption must be ended and honest governmental employees must be protected.
To put matters back on the right track we should bring in 15 paid ministers already working abroad and leave everything in their hands. We will never get over this crisis if we follow the domestic leaders. If the citizens of a country are travelling say at a speed of 250 kilometers per hour and the government is cruising at a maximum speed of 60 kilometers per hour, there just isn't much to be done. That's why we get crisis and that's why we can't solve the crisis.

We've been here in the carpet business since 1983. I think that crisis is in the fate of the Grand Bazaar. Every year something happens that effect our business seriously. And now it's the terrorist attacks in the USA. Until then things was going quite right. A shop has an average weekly expense of 400-500 dollars. Under present circumstances we can hardly bear the expenses.
In mid 80's things were going quite well in the Bazaar. I don't think that there is anyone who didn't earn money in that period. Everybody enjoyed a life above the average. Look, this is important: At those times the profits were not held high. This pleased the customer. In later periods this system collapsed because of worries for days to come. When something say, worth 3 liras was sold for 10 liras, the business started to change its way. A lot of reservations by tourism agencies were canceled or delayed after the last acts of terrorism in the USA. Whatever adverse happens in Turkey or the rest of the the world, tourism is inevitably effected. The earthquake of 17th of August 1999 also effected our business. To me, Turkish economy's heart beats rights here. Currency exchange rates and gold prices are determined here. If something goes wrong here it will effect the whole country. We sell carpets. If I can't sell, I can't buy new goods. This situation also effects the Anatolian folk from whom I buy carpets. I don't think that a war in Afghanistan will effect us very much. But for instance the Gulf War in 1990 effected us a lot. That was because of the geographical closeness. We were really paralyzed at that time. According to my observations people do not trust Kemal Dervis. But I like Dervis' work. There is no other way but to trust someone who have come from high ranks in the World Bank. According to me Kemal Dervis and Turkey needs some time. The ongoing economic problem can only show its effects in future periods. We don't have any other chance but wait. According to me the members of this coalition try to hinter Dervis's efforts. Because they don't want him to be successful and gain popularity. We can do nothing but wait to overcome this economic crisis. We should use our resources very carefully and wait. And that's what we are doing at this moment. The tourism politics in Turkey should be structured by young people who have vision.
For example, I like Erkan Mumcu, the ex-minister of tourism and he is young. He was very successful during his term in the office. He worked very hard to change Turkey's image. I don't think that the new minister who has placed him will be successful.