ANKARA - The Central Bank of Turkey (CBT), conducting a survey based on the performance in the first half of 2004, forecast on Wednesday that Turkey would reach the year-end inflation target.
The CBT issued a statement on inflation rate in June of 2004 in which it said that low inflation was recorded together with high growth rate in the first half of this year.
The statement noted that private consumption had the biggest contribution to growth made in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2004.
Pointing out that rise in private consumption continued in the second quarter of 2004, the statement said that capacity usage rate climbed in line with the rise in private consumption. The statement indicated that the rapid growth in automotive and household appliances manufacturing sector was a motivation for the rise in growth rate in the first quarter of this year.
The CBT statement forecast that the national income would be above the program's target for the year 2004.
''High rate of capacity usage, rise in public prices, and relative revival in consumption would start to be effective on inflation rate in the near future,'' the Bank said in its statement.
The statement added that the first-half-of-the-year performance confirmed that the success gained in countering chronic high inflation was not coincidental.
The Turkish State Institute of Statistics (SIS) announced on Saturday that the rise in wholesale prices index (WPI) was 10.53 and in consumer prices index (CPI) was 8.93 percent, in June of 2004. The monthly inflation rate dropped by 1.05 percent in WPI and by 0.13 percent in CPI.
(BRC-ULG) 07.07.2004