ANKARA: Turkey will prioritise lowering inflation to single digits and keeping the current account deficit under control while advancing reforms to boost growth and make the economy resistant to shocks, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told Reuters.
Simsek said in an interview that economic growth in 2017 probably exceeded 7 percent and that the government was sticking for now to its medium-term programme target of 5.5 percent growth in 2018.
“If you look at the data from the last quarter, there is a high possibility that the growth would exceed 7 percent in 2017,” Simsek said.
“We still stand by the medium term programme. Our target is the medium term programme until we change it,” he said adding that the three main elements that will boost growth will be domestic consumption, foreign demand and investments.
The Treasury, which he oversees, was seeking to diversify borrowing both geographically and in terms of instruments, Simsek said. It was looking at the Chinese panda market and may make an issue in the Russian market.
