EU commission report lauds performance of Turkish economy

In its second quarter evaluation report on EU candidate and potential candidate countries released yesterday, the EU Commission praised Turkey's fast-track growth, saying that its performance is well above that of other countries. "Despite a 4.7 percent shrinkage in its economy, Turkey's gross domestic product increased 11.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, exceeding the strong growth of 6 percent in the last quarter of 2009," the report said, adding that the driving force behind Turkey's growth is a rise in domestic demand reflected personal consumption expenditures and fixed asset formation figures. Predicting that Turkey will be the fastest-growing country in Europe with growth of 4.7 percent this year and 4.5 percent next year, the report said, "Strong domestic demand and rises in energy prices prompted an upsurge in the country's imports. While imports saw a 37 percent increase in the first five months of this year, exports in the same period rose 15 percent." Stating that the banking sector enjoys a capital adequacy ration as high as 20 percent and works with highly lucrative gains, the report said, "Real interest rates for companies and consumers are very low. The amount of credit loaned by banks rose 6 percent at the end of the first quarter over the same period last year, while non-performing loans fell from 5.3 percent to 4.9 percent."