(Bloomberg) -- Turkey’s central bank painted an optimistic picture about the impact of the coronavirus, saying the Middle East’s biggest economy is resilient to such shocks. The number of fatalities from the outbreak reached 131 as of Sunday.
The monetary authority expects “high growth” in the first quarter thanks to the economy’s performance in January and February, central bank Deputy Governor Oguzhan Ozbas told the state-run Anadolu Agency on Sunday. However, the infection’s repercussions have started to impact foreign trade, tourism and transportation in March, Ozbas said.
“As the pace of the spread of the pandemic decelerates, we’ll see the economy recover rapidly,” Ozbas said. “With its dynamic structure, the Turkish economy will be among those that will get over this process with minimum damage and in a short time.”
The central bank cut its benchmark rate by a percentage point to 9.75% in an emergency meeting on March 17, even as inflation accelerated to 12.4% in February. The bank also announced a series of measures aimed at easing lenders’ access to liquidity.
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Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Sunday said Turkey had tested 9,982 people over the last 24 hours, diagnosing 1,815 new coronavirus cases. The total number of cases rose to 9,217, the minister said in a Twitter post.
Below are other developments related to the outbreak in Turkey:
- Ali Yerlikaya, the governor of Istanbul, called on the city’s residents to “never venture outside” for a period of 48 hours
- Security forces set up checkpoints outside several big cities, stopping coaches and refusing entry to passengers who don’t have an official permit
- A public prosecutor has launched an investigation against Remziye Tosun, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, on grounds she incited “hatred” in a speech on measures against the coronavirus