IZMIR (AA) - September 17, 2012 - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Turkey was a model country in regard to economy.
At an opening ceremony in western province of Izmir, Erdogan said that unemployment rate was more than 14 percent earlier, and now the figure decreased to 8 percent.
Erdogan said that when his party came to the power, Turkey's debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was 23.5 billion U.S. dollars, stating that the debt reduced to 1.3 billion USD now.
"We are not holding talks on a stand-by deal with the IMF any more. We are advancing on our path with our own means," he said.
Turkish economy grew by 3.3 percent in the first quarter of 2012 and 2.9 percent in the second quarter of the same year, he said. With these figures, Turkey was a country which caught the highest growth rate together with China among OECD countries, he added.
