Foreign Investment In The Ottoman Empire

As the borders of the Ottoman Empire crumbled throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, unprecedented amounts of foreign capital poured in from investors who were eager to capitalize on the country's sparsely regulated industries. Economist Necla Geyikdagi sheds light on the motives, means and policies which shaped foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Ottoman Empire throughout the late-nineteenth century. The book weighs political motivation against economic incentive in examining the trade policies of the major capital exporting countries. Drawing from key speeches on foreign trade policy, personal journals and popular publications, Geyikdagi provides unique insight into the network of foreign investors and politicians that lay behind the channels of direct investment within the ailing Empire.

"Relations between the United States and the Middle East are going through a period of significant change in which the use of force in pursuit of national interests has proved to be increasingly counter-productive. A new policy direction has been adopted which seeks to promote economic integration, development and cooperation. The recent proliferation of US-Middle East free trade agreements is a corner-stone of this new foreign policy approach. Imad El-Anis here offers an analysis of how free trade and economic integration can impact US-Middle East relations by using the Jordan-US relationship as an example. This book is essential reading for those wishing to understand the new direction of US foreign economic policy towards the Middle East and the accompanying reforms taking shape in the Arab world."--Bloomsbury publishing.

Originally published in 1987, this book examines the consequences of the nineteenth-century economic penetration of Europe into the Ottoman Empire. Professor Pamuk makes subtle use of a very wide range of sources encompassing the statistics of most of the European countries and Ottoman records not previously tapped for this purpose. His economic and quantitative analysis established the long-term trends of Ottoman foreign trade and European investment in the Empire. The later chapters focus on the commercialisation of agriculture and the decline as well as the resistance of handicrafts. Geographically, most of the volume focuses on the area within the 1911 borders of the Empire - Turkey, northern Greece, Greater Syria and Iraq. Professor Pamuk compares the relationship of the Ottoman Empire to the world economy with that of other parts of the non-European world and concludes that the two distinguishing features of the Ottoman case were the environment of Great Power rivalry and the ability of the government to react against European pressures.

Bringing together cultural, economic and social historians from across Europe and beyond, this volume offers a consideration from a number of perspectives of the principal forces that further integrated the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe during the first century of industrialisation. The essays not only review and analyse the commercial, financial and monetary factors, negative as well as positive, that bore upon the region's initial stages of modern transformation, but also provide a ready introduction to major aspects of the economy and society of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. Beginning with two chapters providing the context to the development of Ottoman relations with Western Europe up to the second half of the nineteenth century, the collection then moves on to explore more specific questions of trade links, the impact of improved transportation and communications, the development and changing nature of Ottoman finance and banking, as well as European investment in Turkey. The outcome is a broad ranging consideration of how all these issues played a fundamental role in the final decades of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of Turkey as a modern state with links to both east and west. The essays in this collection derive from the EABFH colloquium held in the Imperial Mint, Istanbul, in October 1999.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1862.

This book seeks to explain the political and religious factors leading to the economic reversal of fortunes between Europe and the Middle East.

In the midst of political decline and burgeoning financial problems in the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire became embroiled in a borrowing frenzy, which eventually resulted in the financial collapse of the empire. Under political pressure and with the growing need for external funds, the Ottoman court compromised its fiscal sovereignty by ceding the most liquid revenue sources to a financial administration controlled by European creditors. In this book, Murat Birdal sheds light on the handling of the external debt crisis, one of the most controversial periods of Ottoman economic history. Based on extensive archival research foreign archives, he explores the pivotal role of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA) in the peripheralization of the Ottoman economy. This book will be invaluable to scholars of Ottoman, Middle East and economic history.