Presidency of Republic of Turkey : “The Turkish economy growing at a time when the global economy is shrinking is an indication of our robustness”

Speaking after the Presidential Cabinet meeting, President Erdoğan said: 'The fact that the Turkish economy is growing at a time when the global economy is estimated to have shrunk more than 4 percent is an indication of our robustness.'

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a press conference following the Presidential Cabinet Meeting.

'OUR ECONOMY GREW 4.5 PERCENT IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2020'

The Turkish economy grew 4.5 percent in the first quarter of 2020, President Erdoğan said. 'In the second quarter, however, the pandemic deeply affected our country as it did the rest of the world. Turkey, nevertheless, shrank 9.9 percent in this period, a rate that is way smaller than the ones experienced by other countries. We managed to keep our economy resilient during that difficult period thanks to the measures and incentives we put in place. We entered a period of quick recovery with the normalization steps starting from June.'

Noting that the Turkish stock exchange stood out as one of the world's best-performing markets with its value having gone up 29 percent in 2020, President Erdoğan said the Turkish stock exchange index had yet another record-breaking increase of 4.3 percent in the first week of this year, as well.

'WE ENDED 2020 QUITE SUCCESSFULLY IN TERMS OF EXPORTS DESPITE THE SEVERE CONTRACTION IN EXPORT MARKETS'

President Erdoğan stated: 'We ended 2020 quite successfully in terms of exports, too, despite the severe contraction in export markets due to the pandemic. With 169.5 billion dollars' worth of exports last year, we exceeded the annual targets by 4 billion dollars. The figures are yet to be announced, but I believe we also surpassed the targeted growth rate of 0.3 percent in 2020.'

'The fact that the Turkish economy is growing at a time when the global economy is estimated to have shrunk more than 4 percent is an indication of our robustness,' the President underlined.

'WE WANT TO LOOK TO THE FUTURE MORE CONFIDENTLY BY BOOSTING ENERGY EFFICIENCY'

Pointing to the natural gas reserve Turkey has discovered in the Black Sea, President Erdoğan noted that the discovery has ushered in a new era for Turkey in terms of its foreign dependency in the field of energy, and added: 'We want to look to the future more confidently by boosting energy efficiency as well. To that end, we aim to make a saving that is equivalent to 24 billion tons of oil with the National Energy Efficiency Plan, which we launched two years ago. With this plan, we hope to achieve a saving ratio of 14 per cent in energy consumption in the first stage until 2023.'

'TURKEY IS CLOSELY FOLLOWING VACCINE DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION ACTIVITIES ACROSS THE WORLD'

Also touching upon the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, President Erdoğan drew attention to ongoing vaccine studies, and noted: 'Turkey closely follows all vaccine development and production activities across the world, and is interested in any product that is at the stage of inoculation. As you know, we have currently started to bring a Chinese vaccine to our country. We have also made an agreement for a German vaccine, but the negotiations are still underway; we have not, mutually, made our final decisions yet. We are also closely following the developments regarding Russian and British-origin vaccines.'