Baku, Azerbaijan, July 1
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
Fitch Ratings agency forecasts Turkey’s GDP growth at 3.5 percent compared to 4 percent in 2015.
The country’s GDP growth will amount to 3.6 percent in 2017 and 3.5 percent in 2018, according to the Fitch’s forecasts, published in шts Emerging Europe Sovereign Credit overview.
Data for the first five months of 2016 show a year-on-year rise in the central government primary surplus, despite the implementation of pre-election spending commitments, with revenue growth continuing to outpace that of expenditure, Fitch’s report said.
Fitch forecasts a widening of the headline deficit this year, to 1.8 percent of GDP. Another primary surplus will allow a further fall in government debt/GDP, to 31.4 percent at end-2016, versus a forecast ‘BBB’ median of 42.1 percent, Fitch said.
The report also mentioned that there has been a further narrowing of the current account deficit, which stood at $28.6 billion on a rolling-12 month basis in April, the lowest since July 2010.
The improvement remains almost entirely due to lower oil prices. Net portfolio inflows have picked up, enabling a modest rebuilding of reserves so far this year. Nonetheless, new borrowing remains a key source of financing, and a very large gross external financing requirement and gross external debt remain key rating weaknesses, the report said.
Fitch forecasts Turkey’s net external debt at 40.1 percent of GDP in 2016, 40.4 percent in 2017 and 37 percent in 2018 compared to 38.6 percent of GDP in 2015.