Turkey’s GDP grew by 15.6 percent in the third quarter compared to the previous one. The decline in April-June was 11 percent, writes Financial Times .
Compared to the third quarter of last year, GDP increased by 6.7 percent. The economy has recovered thanks to increased consumption, imports and investment. In response to the crisis, the Turkish authorities have lowered the already low interest rates, pumping up the economy with cheap loans. Lending growth reached its highest level since 2013.
In the third quarter, imports grew by almost 16 percent on an annualized basis, but exports declined by more than 22 percent. The trade deficit put additional pressure on the lira. It reached record lows in August and September, and continued to decline in the fourth quarter of the year.
In early November, the country’s finance minister Berat Albayrak , who is the son-in-law of the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan , resigned after a record drop in the lira exchange rate. Bloomberg Agency named the lira the worst currency in the world.