While Istanbul is the only province in Turkey in the “global province” category, it was decided that Ankara, Antalya, Bursa, Izmir and Kocaeli also have this potential, and a regional national strategy was put into effect for the new provinces.
The “Regional Development and National Strategy” prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Technology, covering the period 2024-2028, was developed with the aim of strengthening the global economic integration of the regions, increasing their competitiveness, ensuring economic and social convergence between regions and economic and social recovery after disasters.
Accordingly, the first step taken in line with the strategy was “global integration of spatial classification”, while economic and social interaction between countries is increasing in light of international developments such as digitalization and increased mobility, it has been shown that this situation brings with it risks as well as opportunities, therefore the first goal was “promoting global economic integration between regions”.
As a result of the analysis, it was found that Turkey’s international economic and social relations are increasing day by day, while some provinces have emerged in terms of the potential for increasing these relations, and in this context, global and potential global provinces were identified.
It was found that the few provinces included in the global integration dimension are the most developed provinces located in the western regions of the country.
Istanbul, which is the center of the country in all respects, was named the “global city” by a large margin over all other provinces.
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Among the criteria used to determine the global integration provinces, more than half of the international passenger traffic, foreign trade volume, finance and insurance activities, and nearly half of the registered patents were achieved in Istanbul, which is a global province alone.
Istanbul, which hosts 18 percent of the country’s population, also hosts nearly 40 percent of foreign nationals working in Turkey on vacation.
In addition to Istanbul’s dominance in these indicators, it was determined that the “potential global provinces” also have an important place in Turkey in terms of technology production, foreign capital volume, and the number of foreign employees.
Ankara with its capital city and its strengthened industry, Izmir and Bursa which stand out with their advanced production structures and traditional trade center characteristics, Kocaeli which is increasingly strengthened under the influence of Istanbul, and Antalya especially with its developed tourism sector are also included in this group.
Among the potential global cities, Ankara stands out after Istanbul in terms of the number of registered patents and employees in knowledge-intensive service sectors and finance and insurance activities.
Bursa follows Istanbul in medium and high technology sectors, while Antalya follows Istanbul in the number of international travelers and the number of foreign employees.
Kocaeli comes after Istanbul in total foreign trade volume and ranks third in terms of the number of employees in the medium and high technology sectors.
On the other hand, Izmir ranks third in Turkey in terms of foreign trade volume, finance and insurance activities and the number of employees in knowledge-intensive service sectors.
