Covid-19 to have a lesser impact on economic growth: Turkey
Turkey's Finance Minister Berat Albayrak says the country's economy is expected to grow "between -2 percent and +1 percent this year, above the world average."
Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak meets with press and economists at the Presidential Office in Dolmabahce, Istanbul, Turkey June 05, 2020.
Turkey is affected by global capital movements as much as other countries during the Covid-19 pandemic period, the country's finance minister has said.
"Turkey will be one of the lesser affected countries by the recession," Berat Albayrak told in an interview with CNN Turk on Wednesday.
He also noted that Ankara has transformed its economic paradigm to production and export base.
"Turkey changed its economic model. The old model relied on high interest rates, low currency exchange rate and imports. That is no longer sustainable,” Albayrak said.
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Fluctiations are under control
Albayrak stressed Turkey is managing fluctuations in a controlled manner.
Turkish lira lost around 22 percent of its value against the US dollar since the beginning of this year. The dollar/lira exchange rate hit an all-time high of around 7.37 last Thursday.
"What matters is not the level of the exchange rate, but whether it is competitive," Albayrak said.
Regarding the speculations of Turkey's growth amid coronavirus pandemic, Albayrak said: "On contrary to international institutions' forecasts which show a contraction of above 5 percent, we expect Turkish economy to grow between minus 2 percent and plus 1 percent this year, above the world average," Albayrak said.
He also underlined that malicious perception operations do not work on Turkey anymore as the country switched to a "national independence (economy) model".
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Rapid revival
Pointing to the rapid revival of the economy in May and June, Albayrak said Turkey will be among the least hit countries in the second quarter of this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"We will be one of the fastest normalised and recovered countries in the world," he said.
In the first quarter of 2020, Turkey's economy grew 4.5 percent year-on-year, according to TurkStat data. The first Covid-19 case was confirmed late in the first quarter.
All economic data shows Turkey's economic recovery is off to a strong start with the lifting of restrictions.
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