TEPAV: “Turkey’s Production Decreased by One Rank despite the Record-High Growth” Turkey fell from ninth to tenth place among 45 countries with respect to production growth.

ANKARA - TEPAV stated that as of the end of the second quarter of 2011, Turkey fell from ninth to tenth place in terms of production level despite the impressive growth at 11 percent.

TEPAV Global Crisis Group announced the first quarter report published to assess the performance of 45 countries which carry out 91 percent of global production and 87 percent of global trade, in terms of the recovery of production and exports.

The results of the analysis were published in a note titled "Turkey's Production Decreased by One Rank despite the Record-High Growth" by TEPAV Economic Policy Analyst Sarp Kalkan and TEPAV Research Associate Ayşegül Dinççağ.

The analysis which examined the outlook as of the end of 2010 revealed that Turkey was the ninth among the studied economists and said, "As of the end of the second quarter of 2011, it is identified to fall to the tenth place in terms of production level despite the impressive growth at 11 percent. Still, Turkey is one of the most successful countries among Europe and the Middle East, together with Poland and Israel."

Domestic demand driven growth

TEPAV's note maintained that as of the first quarter of 2011, 27 countries have exceeded the pre-crisis production level and 21 exceeded the pre-crisis export level. The note continued:

"Turkey surpassed the pre-crisis production level by 8.4 percent. However, exports still lag behind the pre-crisis level, achieving 92.5 percent of the level in the second quarter of 2008. Turkey ranks the 31st among 45 countries with respect to its export performance, performing even worse than some European countries. In other words, in Turkey the recovery from the crisis was driven mainly by domestic demand.

The most successful countries in the examined period were East Asian countries including China and India, who secured high growth and high export recovery, as well as the Latin American countries that supply to these. The worst-performing countries were European countries suffering from debt crisis and Japan, who was damaged severely by the earthquake in March. Turkey attained the most impressive growth performance among European countries. Despite being one of the countries that faced the severest economic contraction during the crisis, Turkey recovered successfully, even surpassing Poland that was not affected by the global crisis."

Table 1. Change in Production and Exports in the First Quarter of 2011, Compared to the Pre-crisis Period (2008Q2):

Source: TURKSTAT, WTO, EIU and TEPAV Calculations