Post by Vizier of Oz on Apr 1, 2010 5:28:28 GMT -5
Turkish Economy Expanded Annual 6% in Fourth Quarter (Update3)
March 31, 2010, 6:01 AM EDT
Turkish Economy Expanded Annual 6% in Fourth Quarter
By Steve Bryant
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey’s economy returned to growth in the three months through December, expanding on an annual basis for the first time in five quarters as it emerges from the deepest recession on record.
Gross domestic product increased 6 percent from a year earlier, after contracting a revised 2.9 percent in the previous three months, the statistics office in Ankara said on its Web site today. The median estimate of eight economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for growth of 4.3 percent. In the year, GDP declined by 4.7 percent.
The economy is expanding again after the global crisis caused a revised 14.5 percent contraction in the first quarter of 2009, the deepest shrinkage since at least 1995 when the data series began. The government is targeting growth of 3.5 percent for this year and is expected to exceed that goal, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said in a statement today.
“There’s obviously a base effect involved here and the recovery in private consumption is taking place slowly,” Tevfik Aksoy, a London-based economist for Morgan Stanley & Co. who forecasts 4 percent growth this year, said in a telephone interview. “Still, this year Turkey will probably produce one of the top growth rates in the Eastern Europe and Middle East region.”
The lira extended gains after the figures were announced and was 0.5 percent higher at 1.5225 per dollar at 12:22 p.m. in Istanbul. The main share index gained 0.5 percent.
Second Fastest
The 6 percent expansion was the second-fastest among the Group of 20 industrialized nations, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. China expanded 10.7 percent in the same period and India and South Korea equaled Turkey’s performance. Turkey’s GDP was $618 billion in 2009, the agency said today.
“This is going to be the early stages of a strong recovery and will probably be eclipsed by the figure for the first quarter of 2010,” said Inan Demir, chief economist for Finansbank AS in Istanbul, the Turkish lender owned by National Bank of Greece. “Even taking the base effect into account it’s clear the recovery is a decent one.”
Growth in the first quarter may exceed 10 percent, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said on March 28.
The economy returned to growth on a quarterly basis in the second quarter, expanding 6.7 percent from the previous three months, the statistics office said on Sept. 30.
Quarterly Growth
Seasonally adjusted quarterly growth in the fourth quarter was 2.3 percent, the statistics office said today.
Industrial output expanded an average of 6 percent annually in the three months through December, compared with an average contraction of 8.2 percent in the second quarter. It jumped 16.1 percent in January.
Turkish car sales rose an annual 31 percent in the fourth quarter as domestic demand recovered, according to data from the distributors’ association. Ford Otomotiv Sanayi AS, Ford Motor Co.’s Turkish unit, reported net income more than doubled to 125 million liras ($82 million) in the last three months from the same period of 2008.
The central bank slashed the benchmark interest rate by a total of 10.25 percentage points to 6.5 percent in the 13 months through November and has held it unchanged since then. The bank said on March 18 that doubts remain over the strength of the global recovery and it aims to keep rates at “low levels for a long time.”
‘More Cautious’
Today’s growth figures may make the central bank “more cautious,” Yarkin Cebeci, economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Istanbul, said in an e-mailed report. “We still expect the bank to hike rates by 150 basis points in the second half of the year, with the first 50 point hike in August.”
The main National 100 share index in Istanbul gained 9.7 percent in dollar terms in the fourth quarter while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index advanced 8.6 percent.
Unemployment in the three months through January declined from a year earlier for the first time in more than two years, dropping to 13.5 percent from 14 percent. The jobless rate hit 16.1 percent in February 2009, the highest since records began in 2005.
--Editors: Philip Sanders, Louis Meixler.
To contact the reporter on this story: Steve Bryant in Ankara at sbryant5@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net
www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-31/turkish-economy-expanded-annual-6-in-fourth-quarter-update1-.html
March 31, 2010, 6:01 AM EDT
Turkish Economy Expanded Annual 6% in Fourth Quarter
By Steve Bryant
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey’s economy returned to growth in the three months through December, expanding on an annual basis for the first time in five quarters as it emerges from the deepest recession on record.
Gross domestic product increased 6 percent from a year earlier, after contracting a revised 2.9 percent in the previous three months, the statistics office in Ankara said on its Web site today. The median estimate of eight economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for growth of 4.3 percent. In the year, GDP declined by 4.7 percent.
The economy is expanding again after the global crisis caused a revised 14.5 percent contraction in the first quarter of 2009, the deepest shrinkage since at least 1995 when the data series began. The government is targeting growth of 3.5 percent for this year and is expected to exceed that goal, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said in a statement today.
“There’s obviously a base effect involved here and the recovery in private consumption is taking place slowly,” Tevfik Aksoy, a London-based economist for Morgan Stanley & Co. who forecasts 4 percent growth this year, said in a telephone interview. “Still, this year Turkey will probably produce one of the top growth rates in the Eastern Europe and Middle East region.”
The lira extended gains after the figures were announced and was 0.5 percent higher at 1.5225 per dollar at 12:22 p.m. in Istanbul. The main share index gained 0.5 percent.
Second Fastest
The 6 percent expansion was the second-fastest among the Group of 20 industrialized nations, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. China expanded 10.7 percent in the same period and India and South Korea equaled Turkey’s performance. Turkey’s GDP was $618 billion in 2009, the agency said today.
“This is going to be the early stages of a strong recovery and will probably be eclipsed by the figure for the first quarter of 2010,” said Inan Demir, chief economist for Finansbank AS in Istanbul, the Turkish lender owned by National Bank of Greece. “Even taking the base effect into account it’s clear the recovery is a decent one.”
Growth in the first quarter may exceed 10 percent, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said on March 28.
The economy returned to growth on a quarterly basis in the second quarter, expanding 6.7 percent from the previous three months, the statistics office said on Sept. 30.
Quarterly Growth
Seasonally adjusted quarterly growth in the fourth quarter was 2.3 percent, the statistics office said today.
Industrial output expanded an average of 6 percent annually in the three months through December, compared with an average contraction of 8.2 percent in the second quarter. It jumped 16.1 percent in January.
Turkish car sales rose an annual 31 percent in the fourth quarter as domestic demand recovered, according to data from the distributors’ association. Ford Otomotiv Sanayi AS, Ford Motor Co.’s Turkish unit, reported net income more than doubled to 125 million liras ($82 million) in the last three months from the same period of 2008.
The central bank slashed the benchmark interest rate by a total of 10.25 percentage points to 6.5 percent in the 13 months through November and has held it unchanged since then. The bank said on March 18 that doubts remain over the strength of the global recovery and it aims to keep rates at “low levels for a long time.”
‘More Cautious’
Today’s growth figures may make the central bank “more cautious,” Yarkin Cebeci, economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Istanbul, said in an e-mailed report. “We still expect the bank to hike rates by 150 basis points in the second half of the year, with the first 50 point hike in August.”
The main National 100 share index in Istanbul gained 9.7 percent in dollar terms in the fourth quarter while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index advanced 8.6 percent.
Unemployment in the three months through January declined from a year earlier for the first time in more than two years, dropping to 13.5 percent from 14 percent. The jobless rate hit 16.1 percent in February 2009, the highest since records began in 2005.
--Editors: Philip Sanders, Louis Meixler.
To contact the reporter on this story: Steve Bryant in Ankara at sbryant5@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net
www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-31/turkish-economy-expanded-annual-6-in-fourth-quarter-update1-.html