Growth target for next year 5 percent, says Minister

ANKARA

The government targets an economic growth rate of 5 percent for 2023, Treasury and Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati has said, adding that balanced growth is expected to continue next year.

At a time when recession risks for emerging and developed countries are heightened, Türkiye managed to continue to grow strongly thanks to the Türkiye Economic Model and this growth is balanced, he said, speaking at the parliament’s planning and budget commission.

Leading indicators in the second half of the year point to moderate growth, but the growth rate is expected to be 5 percent in 2022, according to the minister.

Türkiye’s economy expanded 7.5 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022 and the growth gained a slow momentum to 7.6 percent in the following quarter.

The growth data for the third quarter will be released on Nov. 30.

In its latest Medium-Term Program, the government forecast that the economic growth will accelerate to 5.5 percent both in 2024 and 2025.

Nebati recalled that the 11.4 percent GDP growth Türkiye achieved in 2021 was the highest among G-20 nations and the highest one in 50 years.

The minister also noted that Türkiye created the most jobs among all OCED member countries, while exports have broken records each month throughout 2022.

“Türkiye sales goods to 228 countries and territories and its share in global exports is more than 1 percent,” the minister added.

He also said that the support provided under the FX-protected deposit scheme has amounted to 91.6 billion Turkish Liras ($4.9 billion) and that the deposit scheme has attracted 1.5 trillion liras from 2.5 million depositors.

The share of FX-protected deposits in total deposits is around 27 percent, according to the minister.

Cost of living

“We are aware of the difficulties our citizens are facing due to the cost of living. We are doing necessary to compensate people for erosion in their purchasing power,” Nebati also said, adding that the government will lose some 90.6 billion liras in tax revenues because of the measures taken to protect people against inflation.

Despite all the support provided to people and to the economy, the government has not and will not compromise on budget discipline, he stressed.

Budget revenues remained robust in 2022 thanks to strong economic activity and direct taxes collected from income, Nebati explained.

“The central government budget deficit is expected to be around 3.4 percent of GDP,” he said.