ANKARA: Turkey top business group project will close the income gap between the country’s southern and southeast region, which have a per capita income of around $4,000 annually, and western regions, with a per capita income around $16,000, said vice chairman Sedat Şükrü Ünlütürk, who runs the project to maintain economic support for the peace process.
“The national per capita income is around $4,000 in the 14 provinces in the eastern and southeastern regions of the country, yet the figure increases to $16,000 in the western provinces. This is a huge gap,” he said, as reported by daily Cumhuriyet Feb. 3.
He noted the unemployment rate is over 20 percent in the east of the country, while it is around 10 percent in the west, which has a significant technological ability.
We reflected upon how we could unite these regions in economic terms,” he said in his exclusive interview with Cumhuriyet.
On the road to reaching this target, the project’s players have held a series of meetings with local businesspeople in the eastern and southeastern provinces of Diyarbakır, Mardin, Midyat, Batman, Şırnak and Siirt, he said.
