İzmir, the third city in the socioeconomic development and competition index is also the center of the Aegean Region. It has rich natural resources, high investment, adult human force ,developed corporational structure, scientific and technologic infrastructure and strong transportation networks.

The third province with the greatest contribution to Turkey GDP is İzmir with its GDP capacity of 13.383  million TL according to 2001 current prices, following İstanbul and Ankara. Regarding GDP per capita on the other hand, it is the sixth ranking province  in Turkey with a value of 3,215 $ (3,894 TL).

Considering the course of the share İzmir receives from public investments in Turkey during the last decade, a trend towards declining may be observed. While the share of İzmir was 4.82% as of 1999, this value has almost halved, declining to 2.44%. And in year 2007, the value declined to 1.99% .

While still being an important foreign trade centre of Turkey, the export share of İzmir is following a downward trend during the last years. The share ratio of İzmir was 7.70% in 2002, whereas in 2008 this value declined to 5.96% .

In 2008 the unemployment was at 15.06% which was higher than average unemployment rate in the country and it has been increasing with the migrations. Qualified workforce, on the other hand, has been migrating to other cities. Lack of sources of living and high unemployment rate in rural areas stand out.

Multi-sectoral structure of the city results in the dispersement of the power in economy and lack of specialization.

Even though İzmir is above the national average in terms of basic health indicators, because İzmir’s urban population is higher than Turkey’s average, services given in the fields such as healthy urbanization, social health cannot meet the needs. Similarly, the fact that health institutions in the city have mostly been concentrated on the centre and they also provide service for the demand coming from neighboring districts and cities overburden the capacity of health services in the city.

Nine universities ; three state and six private, having administrative, medical and engineering science departments. The schooling rate of preschool, primary education and secondary education is higher than that of the national average. Even though the number of students per teacher is lower than the country and Aegean average, the number of students per class in some districts is quite high. Vocational training programmes cannot meet the needs of local economy.

With 32,4 median age İzmir is above the median age figures of the Aegean Region (32.2) and Turkey. (28.5) While the rate of elderly population is 6.84% in Turkey and 8.70% in Aegean Region, it is 8.05% in İzmir. Although these facts show that İzmir is one of the cities in Turkey with the most elderly population, the number of social service and nursing centers intended for the elderly population is not sufficient.

Even though there is a large number of cultural and art activities organized in İzmir, they are not being held in coordination and the infrastructure for these activities is unsatisfactory.

Agricultural production in İzmir is being carried out in more various areas with more high-tech as compared to the overall country. İzmir holds an important position particularly in ornamental plant production and mariculture along with organic agriculture across the country. İzmir has important agricultural products in terms of production value, efficiency and branding potential. Agricultural lands are small and multipieced, average business size in agriculture is below the national average. Additionally, agriculture-industry integration isn’t adequate.

With its geographical position, infrastructure, natural, cultural, archaeological values, İzmir has the potential for different kinds of tourism. But then the average length of stay of tourists in İzmir, the occupancy rate of accommodation facilities and workforce efficiency in hotel and restaurant services are not satisfactory. While the contribution of hotel and restaurant services to the GDP of İzmir is around 2.5%, the employment rate in this sector is %7.9. Lack of promotion of tourism facilities in İzmir is also in question. Support and incentives in tourism policies are concentrated in Antalya and Southern Aegean. 

Limitation to the qualities of fuels used in domestic heating and industry and supervision of the fuels used along with the transition to natural gas in domestic heating are all environmentally positive advances for İzmir. On the other hand, sea pollution keeps posing a problem. Even though the presence of a treatment facility which commenced operations in 2000 to prevent the pollution in the Gulf, some pollution inputs keep affecting the recovery period in the Gulf negatively. 

In İzmir where usable water potential per capita stands at annual average of 614 m3, “water poverty” is among the other environmental problems along with the lack of waste management, air pollution, low rate of environment management systems use.

Concerning transportation, increase in the airport capacity, presence of the international ferry service and of ports serving tourism and trade, and transportation diversity and so on are considered positive advances for İzmir. On the other hand, lack of railway investments, scarcity of direct flights from or to İzmir, insufficient use of sea transportation for the passenger transportation, dependence of local and interurban cargo and passenger transportation on highway, İzmir Port’s lacking the necessary infrastructure and capacity to meet the increasing demand, highway and parking problem are listed as the weakest points of transportation in İzmir.