Impact of Earthquake on GDP Growth in the First Quarter
Ozan Bakış, Hamza Mutluay
In light of the fully-released February, March and partly-released April leading indicators, we expect GDP to increase by 1.9 percent year- on-year in the first quarter of 2023. According to seasonal and calendar- adjusted data, we forecast quarter-on-quarter GDP growth to be 1.0 percent.
In our initial growth forecast for the first quarter of 2023, our calcula- tions did not account for the impact of the earthquakes in the southern region of Turkey on February 6th, 2023. Although we had access to some leading indicators from January and February, we had yet to fully receive all the necessary information to adjust our forecast. As a result, we predicted a YoY and QoQ GDP increase of 5 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively. However, we now have the fully-released data from February, March and partly-released April leading indicators, demonstrating the earthquake’s effects.