If I had a good idea, I would make use of the entrepreneurship support programs in Turkey and launch my company in the US. That’s the wisest option, if you ask me.

Last week, Vint Cerf, who is recognized as one of the two fathers of the Internet together with Bob Kahn, was in Turkey. He currently is the vice president of Google. When he was a program manager for the United States Department of Defense, he led several project to develop TCP/IP technology. His reputation as father of the Internet dates back to that time. During a meeting in Ankara, a university student asked Cerf if he should open a business in Turkey or the US. In response to this practical and meaningful question, Cerf said, “Open it in Turkey so that your country can get wealthier.”

On the occasion of the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), I want to confess that I think the student who asked that question was right. Turkey’s entrepreneurship promotion system barely goes beyond the “Innovate something and we will pay for it” level. We blow money on projects, but the complementary elements do not work. The Turkish legal system, for instance, does not work fast or efficiently. Legislation on intellectual property rights is in place, but it is impossible to seek for your rights in court. There are entrepreneurs who can survive in the premier league, but the tax system hardly makes it to the third league. There is no proper immigration policy. You have to hire five people of Turkish citizenship for every foreigner you employ. With this ecosystem, inventing anything in Turkey is like building a world-class residence out in the middle of nowhere.

Public institutions in Turkey compete with each other to support entrepreneurs, particularly new ones. They unsystematically blow money in the name of entrepreneurship promotion activities. But they don’t take the fundamentals of the matter seriously, if you ask me. They funnel money to star players, but neglect the infrastructure. This is what I meant by the “Innovate something and we will pay for it, my dear brother” policy. Again, on the occasion of the GEW, I want to stress that the infrastructure for doing business is critical for all entrepreneurs, big and small, old and new. If you neglect the infrastructure, the young entrepreneurs you support today will choose the US in which to open a business. Turkish people will own American companies. This is not bad, of course. But in that case, not Turkey, but the US becomes wealthier, as Vint Cerf rightfully emphasized. Turkey’s growth process slows down.

This week the GEW is being celebrated all around the world. The success stories of entrepreneurs are being told like the heroic sagas of modern times. The Kaufmann Foundation, one of the founders and supporters of the GEW, has released the findings of a survey on entrepreneurship policies conducted in 109 countries this week. At a conference at TEPAV, Ortmans talked about the findings of the survey on public policies for entrepreneurship. The results were rather surprising for me: it appears that the “invent something and we will pay the price” policy is quite common. A number of countries are after transferring top players and neglecting the infrastructure. “Registering a business” and “corruption” had the lowest scores globally. There are significant variances between countries, though, while Turkey came out near average. In three areas, it trails below the average: the tax system, intellectual property rights, and the judicial system. Failure at any of these three is bad not only for new and young entrepreneurs. It is bad for all businesses, particularly for innovative ones, regardless of their scale. These three are among the biggest problematic areas in the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Index as well. My definition of infrastructure lies on this very axis.

Going back to top, what would you do if you were that young university student? Where would you launch a startup, in the US or in Turkey? If I had a good idea, I would make use of the entrepreneurship support programs in Turkey and launch my company in the US. That’s the wisest option, if you ask me.

“Innovate something and we will pay for it, my dear brother,” is not a solid policy option. Don’t you think?

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 22.11.2013