Great strides have been made in Turkey’s health care sector since 2003, when the government launched its far-reaching Health Transformation Programme (HTP). The HTP eventually led to the establishment of universal health insurance, while opening services and private hospitals to the majority of Turks. Improvements in patient satisfaction and health indicators have been...
Taking the train to Ankara from Istanbul used to be a leisurely affair. After a snack at Gar Lokantası, the blue-tiled restaurant inside Haydarpa şa station that was built by German engineers in 1872 and once served as the terminus for the Baghdad-Istanbul Railway, travellers boarded the train as the sun set. A clattering eight hours later, the train crawled into the...
The Marmaray tunnel, a rail link beneath the sea connecting Istanbul’s European and Asian districts, was a panacea for beleaguered commuters when it opened in October 2013. Plans to connect the two shores via an underwater tunnel date back to at least 1891 during the glory days of Ottoman rail, when a French engineer proposed to Sultan Abdülhamit II to build an...
Substantial winter and spring rainfalls, coupled with heavy snow in many regions, broke the drought that blighted Turkey’s agriculture sector in 2013-14, with farmers looking forward to improved yields and higher earnings, rebounding from a lean year that saw one of the region’s leading agricultural producers having to import grain and other foodstuffs.
Few treats are as simple and pleasing to the palette as a fresh tomato from a Turkish summer market. But in 2010, worries about pesticide contamination brought strict curbs on exports to the EU, hitting local tomato farmers, among the world’s top five producers of the Mediterranean staple. However, the EU has now abolished the more stringent inspection requirements on...
With Turkey undergoing a major construction drive during the last few years, many associated trades have seen solid growth. One segment showing particularly impressive expansion has been insulation, which has averaged higher growth than construction as a whole, on the back of the insulation of both existing buildings and new ones. There is also still much room for...
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