Türkiye is a “major manufacturing base” globally, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek acknowledged Saturday, including that the nation is investing “significantly” in AI preparedness, which he stated was key by way of human capital and digital infrastructure.
The minister delivered these remarks on the Doha Forum 2024, the place he was one of many audio system on the panel “Competitiveness in the Era of Intelligent Economies.”
He stated that in terms of primary metrics corresponding to fiber optics size, web penetration, broadband subscriptions, Türkiye was “in good shape,” citing the AI preparedness index by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“We are ahead of the emerging market average,” he stated, including, nevertheless, that “clearly more investment is needed” in areas corresponding to hyperscale information facilities.
“The U.N. also does an index on readiness in frontier technologies and again relative to our per capita GDP (gross domestic product), which is upper high middle-income status, we are ahead of our peers,” he stated.
“When it comes to manufacturing, I think, the challenge for us is to enhance complexity, economic complexity, meaning moving up the value chain,” he additional identified.
“That’s why when you look at last decade or so, we have almost doubled our R&D spending as a percent of GDP,” he added, noting that it’s barely over 1.4% and nonetheless low in comparison with superior economies.
He highlighted the spending of the personal sector on this regard, which he stated accounted for over half of it, but in addition recommended that the federal government gives “huge incentives.”
Şimşek stated Türkiye has some 1,300 R&D facilities, over 300 design facilities and over 100 technoparks, calling them a few of the engines of this ecosystem which might assist them transfer up the worth chain and keep aggressive.
“For us, the key is really SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises), the digitalization of SMEs, because that is where the productivity gap comes in,” he assessed.
“Relatively large companies or medium-sized companies are, you know, they are capable and they are fairly competitive but smaller companies, this is really where digital skills are going to be very important,” Şimşek defined.
He went on to say they’re making an attempt to design packages to assist smaller corporations increase productiveness by way of digitalization, including that that is the “key challenge” going ahead.
Source: www.dailysabah.com