Erdogan evaluates Turkey's economic success

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday assessed Turkey's economic developments at the Parliament. In his speech at his Justice and Development Party's (AKP) parliamentary group meeting, Erdogan said that they were working on 2,737 projects totaling $400 billion. "We have made investments amounting to 184 billion Turkish Liras (TL) for the projects which are underway. We will spare 46 billion TL for new projects of 2013. We increased the annual allowance for projects by 20 percent compared to previous year, and 14 billion TL of the 46 billion TL allowance would be spent for transportation, the 8 billion TL for education, 6 billion TL for agriculture and the 3 billion TL for health services," Erdogan said. Touching on the Marmaray project and the high-speed rail line between Ankara and Istanbul, Erdogan noted that these projects would be put into service on September 30.