Turkish economy surges

Turkey's economy grew by 6.7 percent in the first quarter of 2007 compared to the same period last year, the Turkish Statistics Institute said Monday. The figure shows the change in gross national product over the period, the preferred measure of Turkish economic growth, which includes the output of millions of Turkish workers abroad.
Turkey's GNP grew by 4.6 percent over 12 months in the fourth quarter last year, but stronger performance in earlier quarters allowed the government to achieve 6.0-percent growth over the full year, above the official forecast of 5.0 percent. Turkey's GDP grew 5.2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and a total of 6.1 percent for the whole of 2006.