A perspective to the Turkey Wealth Fund from the experience of SOE

In their historical processes, the interventions to the economy during their development efforts of the states took place in different forms. Inherently, it was observed that the implementation results were also not equally successful. In other words, public interventions necessary or inevitable for a period and, successful public administration practices, were later criticized for various reasons. As a result of failures or inevitable changes due to mistakes made in practice, intervention shapes have changed. Therefore, the market and public authority should not exclude each other, that is, interventions should not be unlimited; but they should be done at the right time, on the right place and in an appropriate manner. For this, policies that increase public revenues and transparency practices that ensure fiscal discipline should be implemented. As a method, privatization practices have become fashionable in public enterprises where professional management was not included; the establishment of a legal and institutional infrastructure, which is the sine qua non of the market economy, was aimed; independent regulatory and supervisory institutions have been created for businesses to operate effectively and efficiently. After the proclamation of the Republic, SOEs that came to the agenda as the necessity of realization the development through the state, has been established, as a necessity of the economic structure of that period, particularly due to deficiencies in the financial and physical capital stock. In the 1960s, the SOEs, which filled an important gap in the implementation of the import substitution development strategy, had relative success. Turkey must use its accumulated institutional memory effectively. In particular, in the establishment and operation of projects like the Turkey Wealth Fund, the experiences of structures such as the Privatization Administration, the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, the Competition Authority must be considered. After the global crisis, the uncertainty and destructive competition environment triggered by globalization, is making the management of operations both in financial institutions and businesses, increasingly difficult. The need for the public is increasing due to several reasons, such as: trade wars caused especially by the shrinking market volume in globalizing markets; migration movements caused by wars triggered by global powers; technological developments with an unpredictable future; global disasters experienced in the natural environment and the facts revealed by coronavirus disease (Covid-19), which is also a global threat. However, these structures should not be bulky, because in previous periods application problems and operating errors in SOEs and similar enterprises could be ignored for a period, but today there is no such margin of tolerance. The objective of this study is, after examining basic economic policies and the institutions exerted by the Turkish Republic for its development efforts, and determining in which cases it has been successful or unsuccessful, to develop recommendation for the future.

Keywords

Development, Public Economic Enterprises, Privatization, Independent Regulatory and Supervisory Institutions, Sovereign Wealth Funds