BRUSSELS
The European Commission released a spring economic forecast report, noting that Turkey's GDP growth rate was forecast to ease to 3.3% in 2012, before accelerating to 4.6% in 2013.
"Annual GDP growth reached 9.2% in 2010 and was 8.5% in 2011 (helped by strong base effects), in spite of sluggish demand in Turkey's chief export markets. The major factors behind this robust performance were the continued buoyancy of investment and a positive contribution from net trade in the second half of 2011," it said.
"Turkey's fiscal consolidation in the past decade has been an impressive success story. In the wake of the 2001 financial crisis, the government managed to cut the public debt-to-GDP ratio from 75% to about 40% currently," it said.
The report said the rapid decrease in the unemployment rate, which came down from 12.5% in 2009 to less than 10% in early 2012, was continuing.
"While signs of improving external balances in recent months are clearly welcome, the prospective turnaround is still set to be comparatively modest, with the current-account deficit shrinking gradually from 10% of GDP in 2011 year to 9.3% of GDP in 2012, and 8.7% of GDP in 2013," it added.
