Turkey's new economic program for 2020-2022 revealed

By Tuba Sahin and Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey’s treasury and finance minister on Monday announced the new economic program of the country for the three-year period starting from 2020.

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

"We revised our inflation forecast for 2019 with 12%, down from 15% in our previous target," Albayrak said.

The country's inflation targets are set as 8.5% next year, 6% in 2021 and 4.9% in 2022, he added.

The new program will be maintained under the theme of “Transformation begins,” he said.

Albayrak said Turkey’s year-end economic growth is expected to be 0.5% in 2019.

"The new program targets 5% annual growth rate for next three years each," he said.

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

"After closing 2019 with unemployment rate of 12.9%, we aim to reduce the figure to 11.8% next year, 10.6% in 2021 and 9.8% in 2022," he said.

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

* Muhammed Ali Gurtas contributed to this story