FILE PHOTO – Early morning sunlight cuts across residential housing that stretches to the horizon of Istanbul’s skyline in Turkey June 13, 2018. REUTERS/Russell Boyce
September 5, 2019
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would plan for economic growth of 5% in 2020, in comments which followed data on Monday showing the economy contracted 1.5% year-on-year in the second quarter.
Turkey’s economy is looking to shake off a recession brought on by last year’s currency crisis. The contraction in the second quarter was less than a 2% forecast in a Reuters poll, which also forecast zero growth this year as a whole.
“I am giving a growth level for 2020, we will focus on that. We will definitely plan a growth rate of 5%,” Erdogan said in a speech on Wednesday evening.
The government’s medium-term program, announced a year ago, forecast economic growth of 2.3% this year and 3.5% in 2020. Previous growth forecasts had been 5.5% for both 2019 and 2020.
(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu; Editing by Daren Butler)
