MODERATE GROWTH IN THIRD QUARTER
Seyfettin Gürsel, Mine Durmaz and Melike Kökkızıl
Our first economic growth forecast of last month related to third quarter compared to second quarter and mostly based on leading indicators of July, was 0.1 percent. Due to favorable changes in industrial production and net exports in August compared to July, we revise up our forecast for the third quarter. We increase our quarter on quarter (QoQ) growth forecast from 0.1 percent to 0.6 percent. Industrial Production Index (IPI) declined by 1.5 percent in July compared to June and it increased by 2.9 percent in August compared to July. Likewise, the contribution of net exports to the growth was expected to be negative in July due to 0.3-percent drop in exports and 2.1-percent increase in imports volume indexes. Then, it turned out to be significantly positive in August due to 0.6-percent increase in exports and 3.1-percent fall in imports volume indexes. We calculate that the corresponding year on year growth forecast as 4.5 percent due to the base effect and cumulative high growth rate during the last three quarters.
The current account deficit in August was $163 million. 12-month rolling current account deficit decreased from $45 billion to $43 billion. We predict the current account deficit to GDP ratio to be 5.7 percent in third quarter and the gold-excluded ratio to be 5.7 percent.