It was a relatively easy decision to make for the Governing Board in that inflation prospects over the entire three-year forecasting period have improved. Consequently, an interest rate hike became less critical, and there was greater leeway to support economic recovery with an expansionary monetary policy. As soon as the recovery process is again under way, the National Bank will continue the normalisation of monetary policy. This is the only way of ensuring price stability in the medium term and preventing the economy from overheating. BIS Review 19/2005  1
This dynamic process, which started in 2001 and has reached a certain point today – though it still has a long way to go – is the process that will reveal the potential of our economy and determine its place in the world. Since that time only five years have passed. This is a short span of time for an economy that needs structural changes and whose policies are formulated towards to this end, in order to implement reforms, achieve results and ensure the sustainability of such results. Yet, the achievements attained in macroeconomic aggregates have been even beyond the program forecasts. CPI inflation declined to single digit figures after 35 years, from 68.5 percent as of end-2001. While inflation was in decline, high growth rates were achieved. Annual growth in GNP, which was realized as 3.9 percent on average between 1970 - 2001, became 7.8 percent between 2002 - 2005. The ratio of public net debt stock to GNP, which had led to concerns about the sustainability of public debt, decreased to 55.8 percent as of 2005, from 90.5 percent. With the contribution of all these favorable developments in economic aggregates, the Turkish economy has continued to integrate with the world and Turkey’s foreign trade volume has expanded by nearly 170 percent since 2001, reaching USD 196 billion on an annual basis, by April 2006. The main factors that lie behind this rapid change that is clearly observed in the macroeconomic aggregates are; confidence, stability and the enhancement of predictability.