The Turkish economy grew by 5% in the first quarter, the government’s statistics office announced Monday, beating a 4% analyst forecast surveyed by Reuters. The World Bank last week revised up its 2017 growth forecast for Turkey to 3.5%, citing unexpectedly swift recovery following the coup attempt last year.
High government spending has helped boost household consumption, which accounts for around two-thirds of the country’s economy, reports Bloomberg.
Ziraat Bank economist Bora Tamer Yilmaz paints a rosy picture of Turkey’s economic performance for the rest of the year:
The broad-based growth “is favorable for the economy’s expansion during the rest of the year,” Yilmaz said by phone from Istanbul after the report. “Government support will gradually decline, and will be replaced by the growing contribution to growth from foreign trade — as long as the European economy continues its recovery. We are planning to revise our 2017 growth forecast higher, from around 4.5 percent now.”