The New Method of Adding Value is Digitalization

In order to gain influence over the global economy and value chains, nations seeking to leverage the transformation brought about by new generation technologies are putting technology and the creation of digital economic value at the core of their strategies and visions.

According to the World Economic Forum, an estimated 70% of the new added value created in the economy in the next 10 years is expected to come from business models based on digital platforms. Although there are different definitions in the literature, it shows that the digital economy, which includes all economic activities arising from online connections between people, businesses, devices, processes and data, will have a significant share in the global economy. Although it is difficult to measure its global size, according to a study by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), the digital economy is estimated to have a size of 38 trillion dollars.

Turkey lags behind its potential with 0.1% share in the digital economy

While the US, China and the EU countries hold the top three positions in the digital economy, countries such as Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which want to strengthen their position in the competition, have put forward important and effective visions and strategies, indicating that the future will be competitive in terms of the digital economy. Turkey, with approximately 50 billion dollars, ranks last among the 18 G20 countries that have data. At the same time, Turkey’s 0.1% share in the digital economy is only 1 in 7 of its 0.85% share of global GDP in the traditional economy.

Investigating the reason for this gap between developed and developing countries in the digital economy, Google published The Digital Sprinters study in 2020 and evaluated the performance of 16 digital sprinters from different income levels and regions, including Turkey. It was observed that these countries had difficulties in transforming their digital breakthroughs in areas such as internet penetration into economic growth. It has been calculated that if the potential productivity gains from digital transformation are sufficiently utilized through appropriate policies, the potential economic contribution of these 16 countries in 2030 could reach USD 3.4 trillion, with a potential economic contribution of USD 269 billion in Turkey’s case.

Source: TÜBİSAD (Informatics Industrialists Association)