Abstract:

During the 1929 Economic Crisis, prices of agricultural products decreased much more than industrial products. Turkey, as an agricultural product exporter could not afford its importation under these new conditions. For the financial structure of Turkey, selfsufficiency was seen as the most convenient solution. In this period, the Turkish government aimed at importing substitution in sugar production. But for achieving this, Turkey needed some additional investments. For the capital needs of these investments, government primarily evaluated foreign contribution. But Turkish banks provided necessary capital to sugar industry, with the leadership of İş Bankası. German and Czechoslovak contribution also supplied machinery and technical assistance to Turkish sugar industry. Government deeply investigated possible investment places, to reach the most appropriate conditions. At last, Turkey founded two new sugar factories with their own financial sources in 1933 and 1934. Eskişehir Sugar Factory was the third factory in Turkey and Turhal Sugar Factory became fourth investment in this field. Government unified the whole sugar production of Turkey in 1935, in order to reduce production costs. From this date, Turkey experienced rapid expansion in both beet agriculture and sugar industry. In this article, the state centered sugar production investments were evaluated under the different financial conditions of the 1929 Economic Crisis. For the time period, subject would be investigated up to the early 1940’s.

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