To outsiders, and many Turks, the economic, industrial and financial heart of Turkey is Istanbul, with its upmarket boutiques, towering glass skyscrapers, trendy nightclubs, and old and new wealth. The city is home to some 20 per cent of the country’s population and pays 44 per cent of overall tax revenues. Businesspeople say that 50 per cent of Turkey’s industrial output is produced within a 75km radius of the Bosphorus.
But Istanbul is not the whole story in Turkey. A crop of entrepreneurs are emerging in central and southern Anatolia, concentrated in the cities of Gaziantep, Malatya, Konya and Kayseri. According to the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, 155 of Turkey’s 500 biggest companies, and more than half of its top 1,000, are in Anatolia.
