Babacan: We will be in the rich league by 2015

Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said that Turkey would enter the rich league - a classification made by the World Bank based on the GDP per capita- in two years. Speaking to a group of Turkish journalists on issues concerning the national economy, Babacan said, "Our GDP per capita which amounted to $10,673 last year will sum up to $11,318 in 2013 and $11,982 in 2014 and $12,850 in 2015. Turkey will be in the rich league in two years. The World Bank classifies the countries in four groups: low income, lower middle income, upper middle income and high income. Currently we are in the upper middle income group but will be in the highest category by 2015." Underlining that they decided to allocate a source of $5 billion to IMF in less than five minutes, Babacan noted, "We are paying off our debt and contributing to IMF resources at the same time. We decided to provide a contribution to the resources in five minutes with our Prime Minister. We were among the top debtor countries in 2001 and it feels good to be among the funding countries now." Deputy Prime Minister also noted that the domestic demand in Greece had always been structurally higher than income, saying, "We could have ended up like Greece, if we had not taken the necessary measures. Without producing, you can consume up to a certain point. Greek economy has been shrinking for four years consecutively."