Turkey will slightly lower its estimate of achieving four percent economic growth by the end of the year following the release of weaker-than-expected second-quarter growth figures, the Development Minister of Turkey, Cevdet Yilmaz, has said.
Speaking in an interview broadcast by a private TV channel on Wednesday, Yilmaz said that the 2.1 percent second-quarter growth rate reported by Turkstat was lower than that envisaged in Turkey's medium-term economic plan, but pointed out that first-quarter growth figures had been upgraded to 4.7 percent from 4.3 percent in the light of latest economic calculations.
Yilmaz said: “When we think both figures, upgraded first-quarter growth and recent second-quarter growth, our performance is not far from estimates for the first half of the year.
"In the new medium-term economic plan, we probably have a year-end growth target of between three and four percent.”
Emphasizing the importance of stable growth performance during a time in which global demand was limited and geopolitical strains occupied the government agenda, Yilmaz predicted Turkey would continue growing economically in the second half of the year.
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