World Banks's Zachau: "Turkey has overcome the economic crisis"

The Turkish economy successfully overcame the impact of the global financial crisis and returned its production figures to their pre-crisis levels, World Bank Turkey Director Ulrich Zachau said yesterday. "Indeed, the Turkish economy has successfully recovered from the impact of the global credit crunch," he told the Anatolia news agency. "The entire country deserves to be congratulated for the recovery, because this success is a result of making correct decisions since 2001, following those decisions in implementation, and managing the crisis well. Production has now returned to its pre-crisis level. According to our projections, Turkey's economic growth this year will easily reach 7 percent. At the same time, unemployment is steadily declining and if the current trend continues, it will also return to the pre-crisis level in next six to nine months. On top of that, that all this is happening in the context of inflation being kept under control. As long as fiscal management continues to be strong, the CB will easily be able to meet its inflation targets." Turkey, along with China, became the fastest growing economy in the G-20 with 10.3 percent growth in the second quarter of this year, after expanding by 11.7 percent in the previous quarter.