Is investing in infrastructure vital for productivity?

It is said that investing in the right infrastructure is a powerful lever by which governments can increase productivity. Turkey’s economy is attributed to the construction sector to a great importance in this respect. One of the reasons for this is that construction has an impact on a large input-output economy in connection with nearly 150-200 sub-sectors. Another important argument is the employment generating effect of infrastructure investments. Another reason is that investments are made for domestically produced investment goods and inputs. All these factors mean that a large economic mass is driven by construction. However, basic statistics on the construction sector are actually not the case.
In the last decade, the construction sector in Turkey is in the range of 8 per cent and 5 per cent share of the total production. These rates are much less than 10-15 percent, which is the share of construction in the world economy including housing, commercial real estate, and infrastructure.
It is pointed out that building more infrastructure will not be a panacea for better productivity results. Today, it is very difficult to achieve employment expansion through infrastructure expenditures compared to the conditions 50 years ago. On the other hand, added value in construction is created by machines. The increase in national income provided by public investments should be balanced with the increase in net exports. It is another fact that construction is a very open sector to crisis. This situation stems from the industry being very fragile and cyclical.
Well-chosen infrastructure investments can increase the added value if they create resource savings (saving time, energy, etc.) and especially if they are based on realistic assumptions about population growth and thus increase national income. This is largely due to the projects having optimal scale, location, and projection. Overcoming a problem depends on defining the problem correctly and putting forward feasible solutions within the current conditions. Among these ways, choosing the best cost / benefit balance and applying the chosen path with precision will determine the success of the policy.