Turkey's Economy Grows 2% in First Quarter of 2025

Turkey’s official stats agency announced on Sunday that the country’s economy grew by 2% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2025.

The Turkish Statistical Institute said that on a quarterly basis, the economy grew by 1% in Q1 2025, compared to 1.7% growth in the last quarter of 2024.

During the first quarter, the Turkish central bank spent between $50 and $60 billion of its foreign currency reserves, trying to ease market pressure that followed the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor and presidential hopeful Ekrem İmamoğlu in mid-March.

Adding to the tension, former U.S. President Donald Trump stirred things up in April by calling for new tariffs.

By early May, the central bank had stopped the bleeding in reserves and began gradually rebuilding them in recent weeks.

On a yearly level, the agency reported that the Turkish economy grew by 3.2% in 2024, down from 5.1% growth in 2023.

In Q4 2024, the economy had strong quarterly growth of 1.7%, while Q3 data was revised to show a slight contraction of 0.1%, instead of the earlier estimate of 0.2% growth.

With that revision, Turkey is now officially out of the “technical recession” it experienced during the second and third quarters of last year.