Strong Growth in the First Quarter
Ozan Bakış and Gökhan Dilek
In the light of fully-released January, February, and March leading indicators, we expect year-on-year GDP growth to be 6,7 percent for the first quarter of 2020. According to seasonal and calendar adjusted data, we forecast quarter-on-quarter GDP growth as 1.3 percent for the first quarter.
There are two main reasons for this relatively high growth estimate. Firstly, there is a strong base effect: in the first quarter of 2019 the year-on-year growth rate was minus 2.3 percent. Secondly, the effects of Covid-19 are limited in the first quarter of 2020 because the pandemic impacts the economy in March.
We expect the growth estimate of the next month to be lower be- cause of similar two reasons. In the second quarter of 2019 year-on-year growth was minus 1.6 percent indicating a lower base effect for the same quarter of 2020. Secondly, the Covid-19 is in effect through the entire second quarter.