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Turkey's GDP slows, unemployment rises

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-15 20:44

ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkey's economy continued to feel the impact of the global financial crisis as official figures released Monday showed gross domestic product growth slowing and unemployment rising.

Protesters throw stones at the police during clashes in Ankara November 29, 2008. Thousands of Turkish workers clashed with police in Ankara on Saturday at a demonstration held by the country's two biggest unions to protest rising prices and a possible new International Monetary Fund deal. Turkey's economy continued to feel the impact of the global financial crisis as official figures released Monday showed gross domestic product growth slowing and unemployment rising. [Agencies]

A team from the International Monetary Fund will arrive in Turkey early January to discuss a possible loan deal to help Turkey's economy, plagued by a current account deficit, to weather the effects of the global financial crisis, the Treasury Undersecretariat said.

GDP growth slowed in the third quarter to a rate of only 0.5 percent, the Turkish Statistics Institute said. The growth rate in the first nine months reached 3 percent, it said.

The jobless rate rose to 10.3 percent in September from 9.3 percent in the same month of the previous year, the institute added.

The Treasury said there had been important progress in reaching a deal with the IMF. The details of the conditions and size of the possible loan were not announced.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been reluctant to sign a new deal with the IMF since the previous deal for a standby loan ended in May.

But business groups have been pressuring the government to reach an agreement that would mitigate the effects of the global meltdown.

"The agreement that will be reached with the IMF will eliminate the uncertainty in the markets and increase Turkey's credibility," Arzuhan Yalcindag, head of the Turkish Industrialists and Business Association, told a conference in Istanbul. "The deal will also enable Turkey, which has to pay around US$50 billion (euro37 billion) of foreign debt within a year, to breath."

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria also attended the conference and said that no country was immune to the global crisis.