World Bank's Turkey director expects economic growth of around 4.5 pct in 2011

ANKARA (A.A) -World Bank's director for Turkey said on Wednesday that he expected a growth rate of around 4.5 percent for Turkey in 2011 in line with the Turkish government's estimations.
Speaking to AA, Ulrich Zachau, World Bank's Country Director for Turkey, said that the reforms conducted in Turkey since 2001, fiscal consolidation, a modern debt management, an independent Central Bank, inflation targeting, floating rate regime and improvements in the banking supervision system had all yielded to positive results.
Turkish economy had proven its endurance, Zachau said.
Noting that Turkey's economic growth tendency was expected to continue in 2011, Zachau said maintaining a robust economic growth would be a major difficulty for the country, adding that such goal could be achieved through more number of employment opportunities, better jobs and more productivity.
Zachau also said that Turkey's credit rating could be raised to investment grade if the country continued to implement strong and tight macroeconomic policies and took its current account deficit under control in time.
Commenting on Turkey's export goals for 2023 as well, the director said education was the key factor to achieve those targets.