British Enterprise in Turkey The forthcoming visit to London of
a Turkish financial mission, headed by three leading bankers, is a matter of more than financial importance. Presumably it is a return visit for that paid last autumn by the head of our Export Credits Guarantee Department, that little-known but indispensable Foreign Office of commerce. For many years after the Armis- tice Anglo-Turkish relations were unhappily strained, and Britain fell from first to third place in the list of Turkey's cus- tomers. Foreign advisers, especially from Germany and Scan- dinavia, gained the lion's share of the post-War reconstruction work. Only in the last year or two has there been any noticeable resumption of Anglo-Turkish trade, and that has coincided with a marked revival of friendship between the two nations, consequent on Sanctions, Montreux, and King Edward's intensely popular visit. The trade and clearing agreement of September, 1936, led to the active participation of British experts and capital in Turkey's economic recovery. A British firm secured the £3,000,000 contract for the great new steel plant at Karabuk, which is to play an important part in the second Turkish Four-Year Plan. The Ataturk and his advisers are raising the standard of living by an industrial revolution comparable in its scope only to the Russian. Further British participation in the development of a country with so great a future should be beneficial to both nations and should strongly reinforce an already existing political friendship.
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