Encouraging the entry of new firms equipped with the latest technology and institutional structure into the market constitutes one of the pillars of a well-designed competition policy, whereas the other pillar is to facilitate the elimination of sluggish firms, which have difficulty adapting to changes In a competitive environment, firms will begin to allocate more resources to activities focusing on productivity gains and enriching the product range. It is clear that the ability to access, produce and use information is very important nowadays. In such an environment, only those firms, which closely follow the changes in consumer tendencies, have flexible organizational structures, are institutionalized, are ready to cooperate with other firms and their research units, and draw up their resource allocation plans with a long-term perspective aimed at enhancing the production capacity, will prevail in the arena of global competition. To sum up, in the recent period, important steps have been taken to create an efficient competition environment in the Turkish economy. Indicators such as the growth rate, the increase in productivity, direct foreign capital inflows and the number of new firms reflect the outcomes of these steps. However, there are still many reforms and regulations to be made. In this framework, it is important that policies regarding the enhancement of the competition environment go beyond general implementations and are established by taking into account the sub-items and their interaction with each other. There is no doubt that information sharing and cooperation among public institutions make up an important part of these policies.

Durmuş Yılmaz: The role of competition policy and practices in attaining macroeconomic objectives Speech by Mr Durmus Yılmaz, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, on the occasion of the 11th Anniversary of the Turkish Competition Authority, Ankara, 26 March 2008. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, First of all, I would like to greet you all. We have convened here on the occasion of celebrating the 11th Anniversary of a distinguished institution of Turkey. The Turkish Competition Authority has served its critical function in the development process of Turkey with the studies it has conducted. Let me take this opportunity at the very beginning of my speech to say that I believe the contributions of the Competition Authority to Turkey’s development will continue in an increased capacity in the upcoming periods. The main objective of public policies is to increase prosperity. Under the current circumstances, where economies are becoming increasingly interrelated, raising the level of prosperity of our country is contingent on increasing the share it gets from the global value added. In the post-2001 period, the Turkish economy grew by approximately 7 percent on a year-onyear basis and considerably increased its share in the world export market. During this period, the private sector was the engine for growth, with the greatest contribution from the industrial sector. In the 23-quarter periods of uninterrupted growth process, private sector investments increased by 150 percent in real terms.