Minister Announces New Economic Program: We will Fall Behind Our Growth Target This Year

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Minister of Treasury and Finance Berat Albayrak has announced the "new economic program" of the country for the three-year period starting from 2020.

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

"We revised our inflation forecast for 2019 with 12 percent, down from 15 percent in 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, adding that 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 remarked.

"I didn't see improvement"

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

"We have done extensive studies on growth. We will take accumulated real stagnant area into account, we will not cause any price increase, and we will not put pressure on the budget. I didn't see the improvement we expected in this area this year, where growth was below the targets of expected credit support and there was loss of employment in the construction sector.

"I hope this process is established quickly. We aim to reduce the unemployment rate to 11.28 in 2020, to 10.6 in 2021, and to 9.8 in 2022."

"After closing 2019 with 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."

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

Previous targets

After the transition to the presidential government system in Turkey September 20, 2018 the New Economy Program (2019-2021) was announced under the slogan, "Rebalancing, Change and Discipline."

In the previous program, growth targets were determined as 2.3 percent for 2019, 3.5 percent for 2020 and 5 percent for 2021, inflation targets were 15.9 percent for 2019, 9.8 percent for 2020 and 6 percent for 2021. (RT/VK)