Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci expected that the total economic growth of 2017 would be announced as seven percent and that Turkey would come among the most growing countries globally. Zeybekci, in Sunday’s statements, said that the economic growth would be seven percent, and is forecast to reach record figures in 2018.
Official figures haven’t been announced yet, but the Turkish economy growth during the third quarter raised expectations of growth during the whole year (7.4 percent).
Zeybekci noted that he announced in the beginning of 2017 that the economy will be in the lead of most growing countries, and it did reach 11.1 percent in the third quarter of 2017 despite the global rating agencies forecasts that the rate would not exceed 2 or 2.5 percent, in best-case scenarios 5 percent.
Turkish economy witnessed a shrinkage of 4.7 percent in 2009, then achieved a 6.8 percent growth in the period extending from 2010 to 2016. At that time, Turkish growth surpassed that of the EU and G20 respectively 1.4 percent and 3 percent.
The highest growth rate was in 2011 (11.1 percent) and the lowest was in 2016 (2.3 percent), following the failed coup attempt mid-July.
In the same context, global rating agency Fitch Ratings expected Turkey’s economy to grow by 4.8 percent annually on average in the next five years. In its report titled “Investment and Demographics Key to EM Growth Potential,” Fitch provided a list of the 10 largest emerging markets in the world, in which Turkey ranked third in its forecast economic growth rate (4.8 percent).
India came on top among the 10 emerging markets in the report with a potential growth rate of 6.7 percent in the next five years. China and Indonesia jointly ranked second, both with a projected potential growth rate of 5.5 percent.
On another level, the Turkish Central Bank’s gold reserves have reached a record-high of 564.8 tons. Total reserves including foreign exchange and gold reached $107.7 billion in value at the end of 2017, up $1.6 billion from a year earlier.
