Economic Growth and Forecasts: January 2019

Severe recession in the fourth quarter

Ozan Bakış and Furkan Kavuncu

In the light of fully-released October, November and partly-released December leading indicators, our estimate for the year-on-year GDP growth is minus 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018. Seasonally and calendar day adjusted quarter-on-quarter growth is expected to decrease by 2.2.

In the New Economy Program (NEP), the projected GDP growth target was 3.8 percent for 2018.  Since the first three quarters’ growth rates were 7.4 percent, 5.3 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively, the target will be at risk of being missed in case of a negative growth in the fourth quarter.

pdf. EconomicGrowthForecasts2019M01