Turkey's economy grew a faster-than-expected 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter, data showed on Friday, bouncing back after last July's coup attempt and underpinning hopes of a recovery less than three weeks ahead of a referendum. The strong growth in the last three months of 2016 followed the first quarterly economic contraction in seven years in the third quarter, when the economy shrank a revised 1.3 percent in the immediate aftermath of the failed putsch.
Growth in 2016 as a whole was 2.9 percent, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute data, well below 6.1 percent in 2015 but above the 2.2 percent forecast in a Reuters poll. Fourth quarter growth had been expected to be just 2.3 percent. "I guess in the end this data shows (the) continued durability of the Turkish economy," Timothy Ash of BlueBay Asset Management said on Twitter. The data comes just over two weeks before an April 16 referendum on constitutional changes which would give President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers.
Erdogan, who served for more than a decade as prime minister before assuming the presidency in 2014, and the ruling AK Party he founded owe part of their electoral successes to their stewardship of the economy. But growth has been weakening. Unemployment hit its highest level in almost seven years in the November-January period, reaching 12.7 percent, raising concern among some AKP officials as they seek to drum up support for the constitutional changes. Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said the latest data pointed to moderate growth in the first quarter and an accelerating recovery from the middle of the second quarter.
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