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Turkish economy could grow over 5% in 2021 if no major wave in outbreak, Finance Minister Albayrak says

Türkiye Materials 9 September 2020 23:49 (UTC +04:00)
Turkish economy could grow over 5% in 2021 if no major wave in outbreak, Finance Minister Albayrak says

All leading indicators indicate that the worst has passed and that the recovery in the economy is uninterruptedly gaining pace in the third quarter, Turkey's Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said Wednesday, Trend reports citing Daily Sabah.

"In light of all the data, we expect the recovery in the second half to be V-shaped," Albayrak said in response to emailed questions from Bloomberg. "I believe our growth rate will be significantly above 5% in 2021 if there won't be another major wave in the outbreak."

The Turkish economy has managed to do better than its peers in the second quarter of the year when the coronavirus pandemic struck the most and fared better than forecasts, aided by the government's stimulus campaign.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) in the April-June period shrank 9.9% from a year earlier after it had grown 4.4% in the previous three months.

He said achievements in the balancing period was what helped the economy grow by 4.4% in the first quarter.

"Yet our economy shrank a less-than-forecast 9.9% in the second quarter, at a time when the pandemic gripped the global economy. In this period, Turkey was among the countries that contracted the least among the G-20, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and the European Union countries that reported data," Albayrak was cited as saying.

"The measures we have taken and the packages we have announced rapidly and decisively were among the important factors that have supported this process," he noted.

Beginning in March, Ankara shut schools and some businesses including many factories, closed borders and adopted weekend stay-home orders. Much of the economy was reopened in June as most of the lockdown measures were lifted.

The country's strong health care system has qualities to alleviate the adverse economic effects of the pandemic, the minister said. "High trust in the health care system is also a positive factor in Turkey's recovery period," he added.

Albayrak had earlier estimated this year's performance between a contraction of 2% and a 1% gain.

International ratings agency Fitch Ratings on Tuesday revised upward its projections regarding Turkey's economic growth and said it expects the economy to contract by 3.2% in 2020, up from the previous forecast of 3.9%.

It also made a slight upward revision for the global economic economy, which it said would fall by 4.4% this year, up from the 4.6% decline it projected in a previous report in June.

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