Turkey’s growth to rebound in 2020: Top World Bank economist

By Gokhan Kurtaran
LONDON (AA) - The World Bank expects that Turkey’s growth will rebound to 3% in 2020, a top World Bank economist said.
“Last year growth was higher than the expected. We were expecting negative growth [...] Because we were expecting some sorts of consolidation, tightening of the policy in last year and it did not materialize. Yes, Turkey did surprised us on the upper side in 2019.” Franziska Ohnsorge, manager of the World Bank's Development Economic Prospects Group, told Anadolu Agency.
Ohnsorge said the World Bank updated Turkey’s growth forecasts for 2019 from -1 to 0.
“We do expect a rebound. We expect a cyclical rebound in 2020 to 3 percent growth. That is a largely policy uncertainty is calming, global trade is recovering and Turkey does benefit from global trade. It’s open to global trade. It does benefit from the global pick on trade,” she added.
“We are expecting a gradual pick [of Turkey’s growth]. It rests on strong assumptions; it does rest on the assumption that the financial market would not come under stress again. In order to achieve that there needs, of course, benign global conditions, but that means also right policy decisions domestically in Turkey. It does rely on the assumption of financial markets to continue to be stable,” the economist said.
The World Bank expects Turkish economy to grow 3% in 2020 and 4% in 2021 and 2022.