Turkey sees GDP ‘rise’ after switch in accounting system

ANKARA, March 8, 2008 (AFP) - Turkey has changed its method of calculating its gross domestic product, switching to the system used in the Europen Union which it is hoping to join, the country's statistics office said Saturday.

The change to the European System of Accounts (ESA95) has resulted in a steep "rise" in Turkey's GDP as well as the income per head of population, Anatolia news agency quoted the institute's head, Omer Demir, as saying.

For 2006, for example, the increase was 31.

6 percent, from 576 billion to 758 billion Turkish pounds (526 billion dollars).

Annual income per head in the same year is now put at about 7,500 dollars, up from 5,480 dollars.