The International Monetary Fund (IMF) updated its World Economic Outlook (WEO) report Monday, where it included Turkey's assessment under the "Emerging and Developing Europe" section.

Predicting that the growth in the relevant country group will accelerate in line with the positive expectations regarding Turkey, a statement said: "Turkey's exports strongly recovered at the end of 2016 and in the first quarter of 2017."

The report also pointed out that foreign demand for Turkish goods could rise with positive expectations for eurozone countries.

Moreover, an economic official said yesterday that exports were expected to increase by more than 20 percent in July due to the base effect created by the Ramadan holiday and recovery in the EU markets.

Speaking to Reuters, the official said that the increase in exports in July will exceed 20 percent, the biggest increase in recent years.

Last year, the Ramadan holiday was celebrated in July. It was celebrated this year in June, and the change affected the number of working days in June and July as the number of working days in June decreased by two.

According to a Customs and Trade Ministry source, exports in June stood at $13.16 billion with an increase of 2.1 percent compared to the same month of the previous year.

"We will achieve the largest proportional increase in exports of the last five to six years in July. We expect an increase of over 20 percent in exports in July. An average increase of over 10 percent can occur throughout the year," the official said.

According to Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the latest increase in exports by over 20 percent was last realized in November 2012 with 24.1 percent.

In the meantime, according to the Customs and Trade Ministry, the foreign trade deficit increased by 10 percent to $30.9 billion compared to the same period of the previous year while exports climbed 8.2 percent to reach $77.5 billion and imports rose 8.7 percent to hit $108.3 billion.

In the Medium-Term Program (MTP), exports were expected to rise to $153.3 billion this year from $142.5 billion in 2016. The economic administration predicts that this year exports will be able to approach or exceed the historic record of $157.6 billion achieved in 2014.

Meanwhile, the IMF is leaving its projections for global output growth unchanged at 3.5 per cent this year and 3.6 per cent in 2018, according to quarterly update of the IMF's forecast.

"The recovery in global growth that we projected in April is on a firmer footing. There is now no question mark over the world economy's gain in momentum," the IMF's economic counselor and director of research Maurice Obstfeld said.

"While risks around the global growth forecast appear broadly balanced in the near term, they remain skewed to the downside over the medium term," the IMF said in updated forecasts released in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The IMF shaved its forecasts for U.S. growth to 2.1 percent for 2017 and 2018, slightly down from projections of 2.3 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, just three months ago. The Fund reversed previous assumptions that the Trump administration's planned stimulus measures would boost U.S. growth, largely because no details of those plans have been made public.

Obstfeld said the global economy has been the subject of considerable protectionist rhetoric, such as President Donald Trump's proposed tariff on steel imported from China, but such talk had yet to translate into much action.

"What will happen in the future, we don't know. These threats are in our downside thinking. They're not built into our baseline [forecast] because hopefully they don't happen, but there are risks," Obstfeld told a news conference here.

The IMF said growth in the euro zone was now expected to be slightly stronger in 2018 and pointed to "solid momentum."

It upgraded 2017 GDP growth projections for the eurozone to 1.9 percent, up 0.2 percentage point from April. The IMF said eurozone growth would be slightly stronger at 1.7 percent, a 0.1-percentage-point change from just three months ago.

It said the expected higher growth in the eurozone indicated "stronger momentum in domestic demand than previously expected".

The IMF revised down its 2017 forecast for the United Kingdom by 0.3 percentage point to 1.7 percent, citing weaker-than-expected activity in the first quarter. It left its 2018 forecast unchanged at 1.5 percent.

The IMF said it expected slightly higher growth in Japan this year of 1.3 percent, revised from a forecast of 1.2 percent in April. It cited stronger first-quarter growth buoyed by private consumption, investment and exports. Its forecast for Japan's 2018 growth was unchanged at 0.6 percent.

For China, the IMF expected stronger growth of 6.7 percent in 2017, up 0.1 percentage point from the April forecast.

It said China's growth would still moderate in 2018 to 6.4 percent, but noted that estimate was up 0.2 percentage point from the April forecast on expectations that Beijing would maintain high levels of public investment.

But Obstfeld expected China's economic expansion to slow down over the second half of 2017 as Chinese authorities looked to manage rapid credit growth and non-performing loans.

"In the first two quarters of this year, growth has come in very high. Part of this is the general upsurge in world growth and the upsurge in trade in Asia. But there is also a component that has been fuelled by expanding domestic credit, and that's the part that worries us," Obstfeld said.