Page 10 - bne IntelliNews Turkey Outlook 2024

trying to attract some portfolio inflows from global investors, needs to advise foreign players that he has curbed both growth and the trade deficit.”
“He also has a rather burdensome domestic constraint, namely Turkey’s mercurial President Recep Tayyip Erdogan...
“If Simsek could declare 'I created a recession', that would be the best thing in terms of marketing Turkey to the global finance industry. But Erdogan would then very likely administer a slap to his shiny pate.
“All in all, it seems that Simsek is planning to find middle ground at above 4% growth...
“In his tweet [on 2Q23 GDP], Simsek noted that the TUIK released a negative contribution to official GDP growth from net exports.
“The trade deficit has boomed again. Simsek must work out a position in which he can close some of the trade gap while pinning hopes on financial inflows from the global crowd.
“So we can see that, when it comes to 3Q and 4Q, the TUIK will be found downgrading domestic consumption’s positive contribution to the official growth figure while also lowering the negative contribution of net exports, or even turning it to positive.
“A good thing here is that the actual trade figures have no impact on the contribution to growth from net exports thanks to Eurostat’s’ high-level mathematical standards set for GDP calculations.”
The Erdogan regime is moving along the path as defined by this publication with its 3Q23 GDP release.
While posting an increase to 5.9% annual growth in 3Q23 from 3.9% in 2Q23, the TUIK released a sharp slowdown in quarterly growth to 0.3% from 3.3%.
So everyone is happy: the politician can market the y/y growth, while the finance industry can market the quarter-on-quarter figure.
If TUIK releases a 5% y/y (2.4% q/q) official growth reading for 4Q23, annual 2023 growth will come in at 4.8%. A 4% y/y (1.4% q/q) release for the fourth quarter will result in 2023 growth of 4.5%, while 3% y/y (0.4% q/q) will deliver 4.2%.
Thus it can be concluded that TUIK will release an official growth rate for 4Q23 of around 4% y/y, with the upper boundary drawn at 5% and the lower boundary at 3%. For 2024, an official GDP growth release of around 4% is on the way.
10 Turkey Outlook 2024 www.intellinews.com