EconNews Roundup

First quarter growth, at 11.7% yoy, was in line with expectations. I will have more to say on this tomorrow, but the seemingly high figure is mostly a base effect, after last year's (2009Q1) 14.5% contraction. I definitely would not call it a stunning upturn

Fortune 500 Turkish companies increase profits, but jobs & sales decline over the past year.

The decrease in spending per tourist is only one of the problems facing Turkish tourism, but you'll have to wait for my column on tourism (in 3 weeks) for the whole story (Hint: it involves competitiveness of the sector).

My time-based neighbor discusses whether or not the layman is economics-literate. Interestingly enough, we asked questions similar to the ones he was asking at the March and June KONDA surveys, and the results, when combined with similar questions from earlier surveys, are surprisingly in line with the country's economic health. So people are economics-literate, although they might not know how to take derivatives or economics jargon.

I was discussing imports in my previous post, but when there is imports, there is also exports:)- again, the number is mostly a base effect.