Türkiye, which continues its struggle with “the disaster of the century,” is still at a very early stage for calculating the damage inflicted by the pair of deadly earthquakes that jolted the southeastern part of the country on Feb. 6.
The most critical aspect in the aftermath of the devastating disaster is the determination of the Turkish people and their culture of solidarity. This helps them cope with all kinds of difficulties with the same acumen and keeps the country and earthquake zones standing even after massive earthquakes, such as the one seen in 1999. Turks have an indisputable truth embedded in their DNA: the power to be resilient.
How many political and economic crises on the global, regional and national scale or political and economic crises, natural disasters and earthquakes Türkiye has managed to overcome?
Let's review the country’s last 60-70 years of history. Türkiye has managed significant political and economic crises at the global, regional and national levels and deadly disasters, such as major earthquakes.
The main reason for this is the ability to be a “resilient economy” and the dynamic success of the Turks. Accordingly, it is very crucial to focus on efforts to normalize the wheels of production in the region as soon as possible. The role that quake-hit southeastern cities, especially Gaziantep, Mersin and Adana, will play here is vital.
Yet the most critical issue is the importance of the measures to be taken to protect the employment required for production in the region. In addition, it is necessary to quickly start working with the world's leading international development banks on short, medium and long-term solutions and plans for the recovery of our provinces.
Türkiye's ability to heal the wounds of many natural disasters has been proven so many times that the international financial system will naturally show the necessary sensitivity and support to the financing model studies that such a resilient economy will carry out to heal the wounds of the disaster of the century.
Extensive meetings with all chambers of industry and commerce, exporters' unions and organized industrial zones in the region and projects to be implemented together with the opinion leaders of the provinces, measures to protect production, employment and exports will also yield effective results in the healing process.
Let's not forget, 24 years ago, we experienced a historical earthquake disaster that affected our important cities of Kocaeli, Istanbul, Sakarya, Bolu and Düzce. With a great determination to recover, these provinces put forward an intense struggle to restore economic activity and production.
And in the following period, they gained a dynamism that enabled the country’s exports to break records in the history of the republic one after the other.
The rapid recovery of our provinces, such as Gaziantep, Mersin and Adana, which were relatively less affected by the earthquake, and the quick return to production and exports as locomotive cities will undoubtedly make a very valuable contribution to the recovery of other provinces in the earthquake region, especially Kahramanmaraş.
Besides this, it is necessary to review the competitive skills of our 11 provinces and the strategically important sectors of the provinces with the opinion leaders and business circles of each province. While the structural planning of our provinces is being redesigned, it is critical to protect the sectors that make the province's economy resilient and provide the highest added value and to quickly restore the necessary infrastructure and superstructure for these sectors.
Quickly providing accessibility to our provinces, reviewing all their transportation modes and connecting them with all of Türkiye and the world will positively affect the resilience of the province and accelerate the recovery.
We will stand back up and continue our run toward the future, never forgetting our possibilities and capabilities to be a resilient economy.
