ANKARA: President Erdogan has built much of his political success on the back of a strong Turkish economy. But GDP and tourism are down and some investors fear Sunday’s referendum win could mean a less positive economic outlook.
Turkey’s economic development played an important role in the debate over controversial plans to change the constitution. Sunday’s referendum win will usher in the introduction of a presidential system. But what will that mean for the economy? President Recep Tayyip Erdogan owes his success largely to the strong growth of the Turkish economy in the past decade, but recent economic news has been less positive. Turkish GDP rose by 2.9 percent last year, far short of the six percent in 2015. The reason given for this was a slump in the tourism industry due to the attempted coup in the summer of 2016, and several terror attacks blamed on militant Kurds and Islamists. The tourism sector is an important source of income for Turkey and contributes around five percent to the Turkish GDP. Last year, revenues in this sector fell by almost 30 percent.
