Turkey's new economic program for 2020-2022 revealed

Turkey’s Treasury and Finance Minister on Monday announced the country's new economic program for a three-year period starting from 2020.

The inflation rate should be lowered below 5 percent for a strong Turkey ideal, Berat Albayrak said during his presentation of the new program in the capital Ankara.

"We revised our inflation forecast for 2019 with 12 percent, a decrease in 15 percent from our previous target," Albayrak said.

The country's inflation targets are set as 8.5 percent next year, 6 percent in 2021 and 4.9 percent in 2022, he added.

The new program will be maintained under the theme of “Transformation begins,” he said.

Albayrak said Turkey’s year-end economic growth is expected to be 0.5 percent in 2019.

"The new program targets 5 percent annual growth rate for the next three years each," he said.

Albayrak said the growth will also generate around one million new jobs per year during the 2020-2022 period to reduce the unemployment rate gradually.

"After closing 2019 with an unemployment rate of 12.9 percent, we aim to reduce the figure to 11.8 percent next year, 10.6 percent in 2021 and 9.8 percent in 2022," he said.

On the fiscal discipline side, the minister noted that a 2.9 percent budget deficit-to-GDP rate is targeted for the next two years while 2.6 percent is set for 2022.