It was not until the nineteen-thirties that a serious attempt to establish industry was made. A five-year plan was announced in I934, to include sugar, cement, paper and textile factories, coal and metal mining, and a steel mill; and a further plan on similar lines was announced in 1938. The Second World War put a stop to these activities, but after the war, with foreign, largely American, aid, further ambitious plans for increasing industrial output, improving transport, and raising the productivity of agriculture were put into operation. Private capital played a relatively restricted part in development. Progress was slow. Official estimates show no significant rise in per capita national income from 1938 to 1948. (Istatistik Bülten No. 27, Ankara, May 1956, quoted in Robinson (1956 p178.)
It is difficult to state in figures the relative importance of agriculture and industry round about 1950. Some eighty per cent of the population worked in farming, forestry or fishing. (International Bank Report (1951) p. 16.) Official figures show agriculture as producing almost exactly half the national domestic income, (Istatistik Bülten No. 27, Ankara, May 1956, quoted in Robinson (1956) p. 178), but very probably they make no allowance, or an inadequate allowance, for the large amount of agricultural produce consumed on the spot by its producers without ever reaching the market. Moreover, part of the national income not attributed to agriculture is directly concerned with buying, selling or transporting agricultural products or in some sense serving agriculture. From 1927 to 1955 (Turkey: Census 1955, p. XLIV), within two or three per cent, three quarters of the population lived in villages; besides these, many of the small places classified as towns are large villages; and even the major towns like Kayseri have large farming