ANKARA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Wednesday unveiled its new 2018-2020 economic program, including a series of ambitious targets in growth, jobs, inflation, and national income per capita.
Speaking at a news conference, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek announced the Medium Term Program (MTP), with the main objective including obtaining sustainable growth performance by maintaining macro-economic stability, raising the quality of human sources and the labor force, and improving the business and investment environment.
"Economic indicators show that our economy will grow 5.5 percent this year. That ratio is also the MTP's target for the period of 2018-2020," Simsek was quoted by state-run Anadolu Agency as saying.
According to the new program, Turkey's government aims to hike the GDP per capita to over 13,000 U.S. dollars by the end of 2020, which is above the threshold of 12,235 dollars for the upper-income group defined by World Bank.
The program foresees that inflation is expected to be 9.5 percent by the end of this year, the unemployment rate will decline to single digits in 2019 and will be 9.6 percent in 2020.
Simsek stressed the government "aims for better balanced, sustainable and inclusive growth in the upcoming period."
The Turkish economy expanded beyond expectations in the first (5.2 percent) and second (5.1 percent) quarters of this year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute.
