Turkey’s troubled economy will contract one percent this year before a “gradual” rebound, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development forecast Wednesday. “Turkey’s recovery from an expected 1.0 percent economic contraction in 2019 is likely to be gradual,” the London-based EBRD said in a report at the opening of its annual conference in Sarajevo. “The lira’s depreciation and (Turkey’s) high interest rates will continue to dampen consumption and investment, although net exports should make a positive contribution to growth,” said the bank founded in 1991 to help former Soviet bloc countries switch to free-market economies. “Growth of around 2.5 percent is expected in 2020” for Turkey, added the EBRD, which now invests also in countries including Turkey, Jordan and Morocco. The EBRD added that economic growth across all of its regions “of investment is broadly expected to track the global economy lower in 2019, before a likely upturn in 2020, when Turkey should return to positive territory”. The bank’s latest economic outlook revised down predictions for 2019 — the EBRD now expecting average growth of 2.3 percent from a November forecast of 2.6-percent expansion. The “downward revision to overall growth forecasts primarily reflects the expected slowdown in Turkey” it said, adding that overall growth across EBRD regions of investment should recover to 2.6 percent in 2020. Turkey slipped into recession for the first time in a decade last year following a sharp currency crisis that sent inflation soaring into double digits and hit Turkish households hard.
