Abstract

Poland and Turkey carried some similar economic and political features which have to be taken into consideration in terms of privatization attempts. In Poland, state properties were under socialism and in Turkey under the planned economy. When Poland had the first non-Communist government in 1989 Turkey already launched the privatization program like the major European countries and started privatizing of Telecom Turkey, energy sector which was mainly on the electricity sector but could not gain ground on the program.

This paper compares the transformation and precisely the privatization of Communist Polish economy with the centrally planned non-Communist Turkish economy. Both countries, Poland during the communist time and Turkey until 1980s, had private industrial sectors that were not able to compete in the international markets or against multinational companies, emerging financial market, almost primitive agricultural sector and undeveloped service sector. Turkey started the transformation both economic and social contents by the beginning of 1980s and Poland by the end of 1980s by introducing the free market principles in the economy.

The study covers the period 1980s and 1990s since during these two decades privatization was on the agenda of major European countries and world economy and later the years with the acceleration of privatization. The processes have not completed yet and might be still some improvements.