Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan who is in charge of the economy assessed the country's growth rate figures for Q1 of 2013 as the figures were announced on Tuesday.

TurkStat announced earlier in the day that the Turkish economy grew 3 percent in first quarter of 2013 and reached 28 billion and 75 million Turkish Liras.

Babacan said, in real terms the gross domestic product (GDP) came out with a 3 percent of increase in the first quarter compared to the same term of the previous year which was recorded over expectations and added, "Turkish economy which has been growing since 2010 and increase in the employment rate in Turkey was recorded as 1.2 million people in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same term of 2012. In many developed and developing countries, unemployment rate keeps rising and is currently hitting top levels. At this period of time, the fulfillment of the growing of our country and strong rise in the employment rate is taken as an important success."

 Deputy Prime Minister Babacan stated, final consumption expenditure which went weak last year started adding having positive contributions to the growth in the Q1 of this year. "In the rest of the year, we expect an increase in the contribution of the private sector. In the first quarter, public investments contributed to the growth a lot", said Babacan.

 englishnews@aa.com.tr