TİM President İsmail Gülle Comments on Growth Figures

According to second-quarter growth figures released today, the economy has performed better than expectations of a 2 percent contraction, declining 1.5 percent year-on-year. Our economy recorded a 1.2 percent increase quarter-on-quarter, showing strong signals of recovery. Looking at the subcomponents of GDP, we see that exports remain the most important driver of growth. While domestic demand and investments have yet to provide their expected contribution to growth, net exports' contribution came in at 7.4 percentage points. This was driven by an 8.1 percent increase in goods and services exports. By economic sectors, manufacturing saw 7.7 percent contraction in the final quarter of 2018 and 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019, but the contraction narrowed to 3.3 percent in the second quarter. Looking at investment categories, real contraction continues in construction at 29.2 percent, while machinery and equipment investment shows a 16.5 percent performance loss. However, we know well that the rising trend in exports translates into investments with a time lag. In the first seven months of this year, our exports recorded 2.7 percent growth. The rising trend in our exports, to the extent it proves sustainable, will trigger investments for new capacity increases and provide additional positive contribution to growth. In conclusion, we believe net exports' contribution to growth will continue strongly throughout the year and GDP will close out 2019 with an increase between 0.5-1.5 percent. İsmail Gülle President, Türkiye İhracatçılar Meclisi