Moody’s expects Turkey’s economic growth to hit 3.7% 2017

International credit rating agency Moody’s has upgraded its year-end growth forecast for Turkey in 2017 from 2.6 percent to 3.7 percent. Turkish exports will exceed $155 billion in 2017 and the target for 2018 will be to reach $170 billion, Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said last month.

Turkish exports rose 1.8 percent year-on-year in June to $12.07 billion, the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly said, while annual exports fell 0.9 percent to $142.6 billion in 2016. Moody’s cited the rise in the number of tourists from Russia and Israel, incentives such as tax cuts and loan deposits, and the increase of exports to the European Union as the reasons for higher growth than expectations.

In March, the government also introduced a new framework for a credit guarantee fund (CGF), which aims to help small and medium-sized enterprises obtain credit via banks by providing the Treasury with guarantees for losses from possible non-performing loans.

The report noted that domestic tensions have decreased after the referendum in April and the Turkish lira has stabilized following fluctuations early in the year. However, the Moody’s forecast is still significantly lower than the government forecast of 4.4 percent and Fitch Ratings’ forecast of 4.7 percent.

The average growth for G20 economies are expected to rise to 3 percent in 2017 and 2018 from 2.6 percent recorded in 2016, it added. In June, the World Bank also raised its 2017 growth forecast for Turkey to 3.5 percent from 3 percent while the OECD’s growth forecast was 3.4 percent.

Moody’s downgraded its US growth forecast from 2.4 percent to 2.2 percent for 2017 and from 2.5 percent to 2.3 percent for 2018. Whereas it upgraded the growth forecast for China from 6.6 percent to 6.9 percent in 2017 and from 6.3 percent to 6.4 percent for 2018. France was another country where Moody’s expects a stronger growth than its earlier prediction, which was revised to 1.6 percent from 1.3 percent. The agency cut its growth forecast for developing markets such as India, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.