Per capita income may exceed $15,000 this year, says Şimşek

ISTANBUL

Per capita income is likely to exceed $15,000 at the end of this year, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said, reiterating that the government’s economic program is yielding results.

The government projects that the country’s GDP will surpass $1.3 trillion this year as the economy is forecast to grow by 3.5 percent. Per capita GDP and the size of the economy will rise to $17,028 and $1.47 trillion, respectively, according to the government’s estimates in the medium-term economic program.

The main objective of the economic program is to attain high growth and fair distribution of income generated by this growth, Şimşek said at an event organized by state-lender Halkbank.

The program has several pillars, such as price stability, lowering inflation, fiscal discipline, sustainable current account deficit, structural transformation and bringing current account deficit lower, the minister added.

Şimşek noted that the risk premium of emerging economies has dropped by 45 points, while the decline in Türkiye’s risk premium has declined by 448 points.

“That means our program is working… If the program was not working, how would we convince the rating agencies?” the minister said, recalling that Türkiye is the only country to have its rating raised by two notches by the three major credit rating agencies this year.

The Turkish economy’s fundamentals are strong, with growth having averaged 5.5 percent in the last 20 years, Şimşek noted.

GDP expanded 2.1 in the third quarter, easing from 2.4 percent in the second quarter.

“The growth is temporarily slowing down. Sometimes we need to rest to run again,” he said.