By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's economy grew 5.1 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared with the same period of 2016, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced on Monday.
Six-month GDP at current prices climbed to around 1.38 trillion Turkish liras (nearly $380 billion) while second-quarter GDP stood at 734 billion Turkish liras (some $205 billion), an official report revealed.
The total value added of construction and industry sectors increased by 6.8 and 6.3 percent, respectively, while the services sector showed a 5.7 percent rise and the agricultural sector performed a 4.7 percent hike in the period of April-June this year, compared with same quarter of 2016.
Turkey's GDP was 2.6 trillion Turkish liras (around $863 billion) last year, up from 2.34 trillion Turkish liras (approximately $862 billion) in 2015.
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 3.02 on average last year while one dollar was traded for 2.71 liras in 2015.
According to the TurkStat revised data, the country's economy grew 5.2 percent year-on-year between January-March this year.
The annual growth rates were 6.1 percent in 2015 and 3.2 percent last year while the growth target for 2017 is 4.4 percent in the government's medium-term program.
In June, the World Bank raised its 2017 growth forecast for Turkey to 3.5 percent from three percent and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) made a revision to 3.4 percent from 3.3 percent.
Last month, international credit rating agency Moody's raised its end-year growth forecast to 3.7 percent from 2.6 percent, while Fitch forecast economic growth of 4.3 percent on average between 2017 and 2019.