Exports of natural stone and economic growth of effect on economic growth in Turkey: Analysis - example of finnished marble (2002 - 2016)

Today, with globalization, economic and political interaction has accelerated in the world. Thanks to developing technology, countries are involved in economic solidarity and business alliance with each other in different sectors. Turkey one of fastest and the most promising sectors of this economic turnover that is constantly changing, developing and renewing is the "natural stone sector". Turkey has about 40% of the world's natural stone potential. This is a very high rate for demand and supply of the world. Currently, usage rate of these potentials is a quite small amount compare to the reserve ratios that we have. 85% of the natural stones produced in our country constitute "marble" and our country is in the 6th place in marble production of the world. This ratio states a potential gain for the country's economy. In our study, we were in an endeavour to investigate the effects of finished marble exports on the growth of the country in terms of total kg, total USD, unit export price per kilogram of marble and exchange rate. The variables of this study are the growth rate as GDP, real exchange rate, total export volume as kg, total export value in dollars and the unit export price per kilogram which was obtained by the proportion of these data. I hope that the results of these studies will be useful to all those who are exporters, economists, interested in social sciences, and students who are trained in this area, and that they will be able to guided to their work and academic life and contribute to their new work. Keywords: Marble, Natural Stone, Exchange Rate, Export, Economic Growth and VAR Analysis