Turkey announces economic plan for country’s recovery
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Turkey’s finance minister has lowered the country’s economic growth targets and promised to slash public spending by nearly $10bn as the country seeks to find a path out of a currency crisis. Berat Albayrak, who was placed in charge of the economy by his father-in-law, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said GDP growth would be 3.8 per cent in 2018 and 2.3 per cent in 2019, both cut from previous forecasts of 5.5 per cent.
Seeking to allay concerns among international investors that public spending has fuelled inflation that almost hit 18 per cent in August, Mr Albayrak promised to cut showpiece infrastructure projects that have accounted for a large proportion of government expenditure. “Some of the projects that have not been tendered out yet will be suspended. Mega infrastructure projects will be implemented with international financing,” he said in a presentation using English-language slides at a museum in Istanbul.
He said the budget deficit would be 1.9 per cent of GDP this year and 1.8 per cent in 2019. In an acknowledgment that inflation is likely to rise further in the months ahead, the 2018 inflation target was 20.8 per cent but Mr Albayrak said it would come down to 15.9 per cent next year.
