OECD Economic Assessment of Turkey 2008
29 September 2008 4:00 pm CEST
Andreas Wörgötter, OECD
Venue
wiiw, Rahlgasse 3, 1060 Vienna, lecture hall (entrance from the ground floor)
Description
Far-reaching institutional and structural reforms following the 2001 crisis underpinned an unprecedented period of high growth in Turkey until 2007. More recently, however, tensions have arisen and growth has slowed down as a result of loss of competitiveness in large areas of the economy, the deterioration of international conditions, and a weakening of confidence domestically. New government initiatives to strengthen the macroeconomic policy framework, and upgrade the competitiveness of industry and its capacity to create jobs, would help the economy resume a stronger growth course. The main challenges in this respect are: preserving the gains of fiscal consolidation and making fiscal policy more compatible with higher growth; resuming disinflation and better aligning structural policies as well as fiscal policy with the inflation targeting framework and, finally, reducing barriers to formal employment in order to mobilise the productivity potential and improve the resilience of the Turkish economy.