Word: kayseri
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Falling trade barriers with the West have also reinvigorated some of Turkey's ancient trade centers. In the old Silk Road city of Kayseri, formerly Caesarea, 150 miles (240 km) southeast of Ankara, some 400 factories producing everything from electric cables to blue jeans have sprung up in the past several years. Exports from that city and its sister "Anatolian tigers," as Turks call the industrial hubs of the central part of the country, have doubled since 2002. "We will take care of Europe in its old age," jokes Mustafa Boydak, head of Kayseri's Chamber of Commerce, citing Turkey...
...latest political problems show how Turkey's old secular establishment, a wealthy class rooted in western coastal cities, is not ready to surrender its prerogatives yet. It is backing the court challenge to the AKP, whose electoral base, incidentally, is central Anatolia. (Turkey's President, Abdullah Gul, is from Kayseri.) "The reason the economy was booming in recent years," says Raymond James analyst Avci, "was that there was finally political stability with a single-party government. That is now in jeopardy, which is worrying." And yet businessmen like Serdar Bilgili remain upbeat. The Istanbul entrepreneur just invested...
...region's fastest-growing cities is Kayseri, formerly Caesaria, founded more than 3,000 years ago. Today, it still has the appearance of an old Asian trading town. But a tariff agreement signed ten years ago between Turkey and the E.U. gave a massive boost to the city's textile, furniture and electronic supply industries, with 400 new factories having been built in the past five years alone. And the expansion of exports to Europe and the U.S. has improved local quality control and raised labor and industrial standards in the region. Signs of prosperity are everywhere as the city...
...Despite the economic surge, Kayseri and its region remain deeply conservative. There is only one bar in the city, and it is usually closed. Business leaders plough a portion of their profits back into schools, universities, hospitals and mosques - a form of tithing. Many women wear headscarves. Still, the recent prosperity is lending new texture to Turkey's traditional image as the meeting place of East and West. Celal Hasnalcaci, a local manufacturer of denim jeans for export, prays five times a day but adorns his office walls with photographs of young women striking provocative poses in low-cut jeans...
...Kayseri's growth is part of a broader growth of the Turkish economy. Between 2002 and 2006, exports fueled an 8% annual expansion of GDP, while inflation remains at a 25-year low. Still, average incomes are only around one-third of those enjoyed in the main economies of Western Europe, and corruption remains widespread. Those realities may be part of the reason that, despite Turkey's impressive economic performance, Europe appears to be cooling toward welcoming it into the club. Although formal negotiations over its membership were recently started after Turkey had spent four decades knocking on the door...