Officials figures showed on Monday i.e. 31th August: Turkey’s economy shrunk by 9.9 % in the second quarter of the year from the previous three-month period in the wake of lockdown measures put in place to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though the quarterly decline in the April to June period reported by the Turkish Statistical Institute was the country’s one of the biggest contraction in more than a decade, it was a little less than economists had predicted. When the pandemic struck in March, the government imposed a many restrictions to keep a grip on infections that inevitably hurt the economy.
Many of the restrictions were lifted in month of June. As well as shutting down some businesses, it imposed weekend curfews, closed borders and restricted domestic travel. Turkey’s economy grew by 4.4 % in the first quarter.
