The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) April 2017 World Economic Outlook report was eagerly anticipated in Turkey amid the country's serious economic woes and political turmoil.

For Turkey, the most important aspect of the report was the IMF's approval of a new calculation method adopted last year by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TUIK) to determine gross domestic product. In a move that stirred much controversy, the TUIK revised figures retroactively so that the country’s 2015 GDP, for instance, increased 20%. The IMF, however, has downplayed the criticism that Turkish pundits have leveled against the move by employing the new GDP data, according to which the Turkish economy grew 6.1% in 2015 and 2.9% in 2016.

Yet the IMF projects that the Turkish economy will grow only 2.5% this year, well below the average 4.5% the IMF forecasts for the group of 153 emerging market and developing economies, which represent 85.5% of the world’s population and 58% of the gross world product.

In the group of emerging Eastern and Central European countries, Turkey stands out as the only country with deteriorating economic prospects. According to the report, Turkey’s outlook “is clouded by heightened political uncertainty, security concerns and the rising burden of foreign-exchange-denominated debt caused by the lira depreciation.”