Turkish economy grows 7.3 percent in first quarter

ANKARA

Turkey’s economy grew by 7.3 percent in the first quarter of 2022 from a year ago, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) showed on May 31.

The first-quarter growth was in line with economists’ expectations.

The balanced economic growth, which began at the start of 2021, continued in the first quarter of 2022, Treasury and Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati said, commenting on the latest GDP data.

“Even though increasing costs due to global developments pose some risks to our production, we expect Turkey to decouple positively from other countries thanks to our policies which support production,” Nebati wrote on Twitter.

The Finance and Treasury Ministry issued a separate statement stressing the increase in machinery and equipment investments. “The continued increase in those investments is import to expand production capacity in the period ahead,” the statement said.

“Exports are likely to remain strong and the favorable outlook in tourism activity observed in the first quarter will continue in the remainder of the year and support growth,” it added.

TÜİK data showed that the rate of growth in January-March slowed from the 9.1 percent expansion recorded in the fourth quarter of last year.

The quarterly growth also slowed from 1.5 percent in the final quarter of 2021 to 1.2 percent in the first quarter of this year.

The size of the economy in current prices was 2.5 trillion Turkish Liras and $179.8 billion in the first quarter, according to TÜİK.

The country’s economy grew by 1.8 percent in 2021 from the previous year.

Final consumption of resident households, which rose by 21.4 percent year-on-year in the previous quarter, increased by 19.3 in January-March.

The share of households’ consumption in the country’s gross domestic product in current prices was 57.2 percent of the national income in the quarter.

The government final consumption expenditures gathered pace, rising 0.9 percent on an annual basis in the first quarter, after declining by 1.9 percent in the October-December period of 2021.
Exports, which increased by 16.8 percent, made a strong contribution to the overall growth.

The gross fixed capital formation, which fell 0.8 percent in the final quarter of last year, increased by 1.1 percent year-on-year in January-March, TÜİK data showed.

The agriculture sector grew by 0.9 percent from a year ago, slowing from the 3.3 percent growth in the previous quarter.

The industry sector’s output rose by 7.4 percent year-on-year with manufacturing production recording an annual increase of 7.6 percent.

The construction sector shrank 7.2 percent in the first quarter of 2022, which came on top of the 3.9 percent contraction in the sector in the final quarter of 2021, while the real estate activities industry grew by 5.4 percent.