Turkey's economy gets US$140b boost from new accounting methods

Istanbul

WHERE reforms and a series of interest rate cuts failed, new accounting methods have succeeded in delivering a US$140 billion boost to Turkey's economy.

That's how many economists are interpreting Monday's gross domestic product data, whose methodology is prompting a host of eye-popping revisions. Where last year's GDP had been reported at US$720 billion, the updated arithmetic shows it to have been US$862 billion, pushing Turkey past the Netherlands to take its place as the 17th largest economy worldwide.