Turkey Is World's Fastest Growing Economy

According to statistics from the Turkish Statistics Institute, the country was the fastest-growing economy in the world during the first half of this year, as the economy grew by 8.8% between April and June compared to the same period in 2010. During the first quarter of the year the economy grew by 11.6%, giving a combined growth of 10.2% compared to the same period in 2010, which is higher than China's 9.6% growth during the same period.

The economy in Turkey has now grown for seven consecutive quarters since it suffered a 4.8% contraction in 2009. Since then the central bank has adhered to a strict monetary policy, and the country has benefited from a number of investments in the private sector, enabling the economy to bounce back much faster than had been predicted. In fact it's strong recovery is attributed to the dynamic private sector combined with high domestic demand, as it's been estimated that the private sector accounted for 91% of the country's 8.9% annual growth last year.

Private investments grew by 33.5% during the second quarter, compared to the second quarter of 2010, and by 6.7% compared to the first quarter in the year. The construction industry, trade and transportation and the financial sectors are also performing strongly, contributing towards the higher than expected growth, and total foreign direct investment in the country during the first six months of the year came to $6.2 billion, an incredible increase of 338.5% compared to the first six months of 2010. Apparently one of the major reasons for this amount of money coming into the country is the strong finance sector.