STORY: Türkiye's GDP growth slows to 2.5 pct in Q2
SHOOTING TIME: Recent footage
DATELINE: Sept. 3, 2024
LENGTH: 0:01:24
LOCATION: Ankara
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of factories at an industrial zone in Türkiye (courtesy of ihlas news agency)
2. various of employees at factories in Türkiye (courtesy of ihlas news agency)

STORYLINE:

Official data released on Monday show that Türkiye's economy fell short of expectations, growing 2.5 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of this year.

This growth rate increased only 0.1 percent from the previous quarter, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute.

The data indicate that domestic demand's contribution to growth declined by 1.2 percentage points, while net foreign demand increased by 1.3 points.

The slowdown came amid monetary tightening over the past year. Since last June, Türkiye's central bank has curbed rocketing inflation by raising its key interest rate from 8.5 to 50 percent. The inflation rate peaked at 75 percent in May and fell to 61.78 percent in July.

"Growth started to rebalance, the current account deficit narrowed, the risk premium decreased, foreign resource inflows increased, reserves improved, and we entered the disinflation process," Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said Monday on social media platform X.

The unemployment rate remained at 8.8 percent in the second quarter, the minister said, despite the employed population growing by 205,000 people from the previous quarter.

"We expect our strengthening macro-financial stability and the more accommodative global conditions to contain the short-term effects of disinflation on growth," Simsek added.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Ankara.
(XHTV)