İzmir Economic Congress

İzmir Economic Congress was held İzmir, Turkey between 17 February - 4 March 1923, shortly after the end of the Turkish War of Independence and during the interval between the two conferences that led to the Lausanne Treaty the same year. The conference was held in order to emphasize the importance for the Turkey of economic development, as the country had been shattered by years of war. Early Turkish economic policy was articulated at this congress.

The new-born republic was to have a mixed economy—as advised by the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Atatürk's conjonctural words have long been quoted by the statist economists in Turkey in an effort to justify the state's role in economy.

A second Congress under the same name and with stressed references to the first was held during the military rule in Turkey in 1981, and a third (named [http://www.tik2004.org.tr Economic Congress of Turkey] ) was organized by Turkey's [http://www.dpt.gov.tr State Planning Organization] in 2004, both times also in İzmir, although these last two are far from having the historic significance of the first.

An exhibition of various commercial products organized simultaneously to the Congress, in İzmir's Hamparsumyan House, used as storehouse for the Ottoman Bank at the time, is considered to be the precursor of today's İzmir International Fair.

ee also

*Statism
*Turkish War of Independence
*İzmir

References

*Lewis, Bernard. "The Emergence of Modern Turkey". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.
*Zurcher, Eric. "Turkey: A Modern History". London: I.B. Tauris, 1993.