Major growth in services

A large proportion of new investments are made in service sectors such as retailing, air transportation, finance, health, tourism and education. And in the last five years, the share of the services sector in Turkey's GDP. has risen from 58.5 percent to 61.7 percent. It is well-known that, as countries become more developed, the share of the services sector in GDP rises. From this perspective, Turkey is 2 points away from
reaching the average global level.

Revenue has increased, service has risen
In the last year, the share of services in Turkey's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has risen to nearly 62 percent. Professor Ramadan Aktaş of the TOBB University of Economics and Technology says that the rapid growth of the services sector over the last ten years has run parallel to the development of the economy, and notes: "The rise in per capital national income in Turkey has increased demand for the services sector and this is how sectors such as retailing, air transportation and telecommunications have developed. The increase in income results in a rise in the share of services in GDP. This rate grows as the level of a country's development rises." Indeed, per capita GDP rose from $3,492 in 2002 to $10,079 in 2010, while the share of services in GDP increased from 59.2 percent in 2002 to nearly 62 percent in 2010.

The new motor of employment
According to Turkstat's figures for 2010, 55 percent of the workforce is employed in the services sector, 25 percent in agriculture and 20 percent in industry. Employment in the services sector has risen steadily over the last five years. According to the data Capital has obtained from speaking with individual sectoral representatives, the services subsector which has attracted most entrepreneurs is retailing. Around 200,000 large and small firms are estimated to be active in retailing. According to data from the Shopping Malls and Retailers' Association (AMPD), a total of 2.1 million people were employed in this sector at the end of
2010, up from 1.7 million five years previously.


The fastest in the sector
Turkstat's calculations show that the added value created by the services sector has risen by 576 percent in the last 10 years and by around 80 percent in the last five years to TL 682 billion. The fastest growing of the sub-sectors is air transportation. Musa Alioğlu, the general secretary of the Turkish Private Sector Air Transportation Operators Association (TÖSHİD), says that air transportation has grown rapidly as a result of the opening of the sector to private companies, and adds: "In 2005 the sector's turnover stood at $5 billion. The private sector accounted for $1.5 billion of this. In 2010, the turnover of the sector was $12 billion." $10.6 billion of this $12 billion was the private sector. "In 2023, the turnover of the sector will reach $15 billion and employment will increase by 5-10,000," predicts Alioğlu.

Vehicle leasing ranks second
Over the last five years, vehicle leasing has been the second fastest growing sector... İnan Ekici, the deputy general manager of Avis, the sector leader, says: "The sector has a clear way ahead over the next three years." The call centers sector, which entered our lives after the banking and GSM sectors, was the third fastest growing. Finance was the fourth fastest growth areas in the services sector. In 2005, the total size of the finance sector stood at $441 billion, which grew to $867 billion at the end of 2010. The fifth fastest growing sector was information technology (IT). In 2005, the total size of the sector was $3.9 billion, rising to $7.5 billion in 2010, when it provided employment for 200,000 people.