ISTANBUL: The Turkish economy slowed sharply to 2.1 percent growth in the second quarter, partly because of rate rises to defend the lira, official data showed yesterday.
The figure was less than half growth of 4.7 percent in the first quarter of the year.
“Gross domestic product increased by 2.1 percent in the second quarter of 2014 and reached 30.8m lira,” Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) said on its website.
The GDP growth is below the analysts’ estimates of 2.8 percent.
On a quarterly basis, output fell 0.5 percent in the first three months of the year over the previous quarter, TurkStat figures showed.
In the afternoon trading on Wednesday, the lira weakened and was down 0.6 percent against the dollar at 2.2065. The stock exchange was down 0.85 percent at 79,400.13.
“Economic growth has lost momentum in the second quarter of 2014 due to monetary tightening, the delayed effects of macroprudential measures and geopolitical tensions,” Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said in a statement on Wednesday.
It would be hard for the government to reach its original target of four-percent growth for the whole of this year due to an increase in downwards risks, he added.
Analysts have already revised their forecasts downward.
AFP
