ISTANBUL

The manufacturing industry was the biggest contributor to Turkey's GDP performance last year, the Turkish industry and technology minister said on Tuesday.

Turkey continues to grow with production led by the manufacturing industry, Mustafa Varank tweeted.

Turkey's economy expanded 1.8% year-on-year in 2020 despite the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, official figures revealed on Monday.

The country's GDP at current prices stood at 5.1 trillion Turkish liras (some $717.1 billion) last year.

In the last quarter of 2020, the economy posted an annual growth rate of 5.9%.

The minister said the manufacturing industry, which expanded 10.5% year-on-year in the last quarter of 2020, was the biggest contributor to the country's GDP growth rate during the October-December period.

Varank also said the rise in the production activities reflects on the employment side, adding:

"The number of employees in the manufacturing industry rose by 325,000 in December 2020, up by 8.6% to 4.1 million compared to the same month previous year."

Over the same period, machinery and equipment investments increased by 38.7%, which shows the manufacturing industry will continue to expand in the coming period, Varank stressed.