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ISTANBUL, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Following a rough year marked by the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, Turkey's economic outlook is slowly improving, but costly food prices remain a burden for much of the population.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday that it expects Turkey's economy to expand by around 6 percent in 2021 with the roll-out of a vaccine and recovery of trading partner growth.

"Inflation is expected to fall modestly by end-2021... and the current account deficit is expected to fall to 3.5 percent of GDP, in large part reflecting lower gold imports and a modest recovery of tourism," it said.

Turkey's gross domestic products (GDP) increased to a more-than-expected 6.7 percent growth rate in the third quarter after contracting by 9.9 percent in the previous three months.

Ankara projects 2020 growth to come in at 0.3 percent and expects a rebound of 5.8 percent in 2021.

Sefer Sener, an economist and scholar at Istanbul University, said that "the IMF report shows that in view of international institutions, Turkey's outlook has begun to turn positive again," the state-run Anadolu agency reported.

Turkey was slowly recovering from a 2018 currency meltdown when the COVID-19 outbreak hit, weakening the already vulnerable economy with high inflation and unemployment and a widening current account deficit.

Following a change in economic policymakers prompted by the plunge of the Turkish currency to record lows and faltering foreign currency reserves, Ankara took decisions considered market-friendly. A sharp hike in interest rates was among those moves.

But while macroeconomic indicators are slowly improving, consumer prices are troubling a large part of society.

In capital Ankara's residential Yildiz neighborhood, a grocery shop owner told Xinhua that a significant number of his clients purchase on credit.

"Look at the debt book! It is full of people who buy and repay me at the start of the next month when they receive their salary, but it is a vicious circle because some of them never return to clear their debts," Hilmi Taskin said.

Many local grocery shops have similar books and let reliable clients shop on credit. "It was already hard before the pandemic, and it got worse with these soaring prices," explained the grocer.

Tens of thousands of people have seen their workplaces closed during the pandemic and lost their income. They rely on cash or food assistance from the government, municipalities, or charities.

According to a recent survey conducted by Istanbul's Kadir Has University, the cost of living is by far the most prominent concern of Turks as 51 percent of the responders have said that they cannot make ends meet.

The annual inflation rate currently stands at 14.6 percent. However, food prices climbed by 20.6 percent over the past year partly because of rising oil and fertilizer prices and dry weather, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute.

"We only buy the strictly necessary, and we spend a considerable part of our monthly income on food," Aslihan Demir, a private company clerk, told Xinhua in Ankara's downtown Kizilay neighborhood.

This mother of two complained of the rise in prices in basic living costs and said that while she and her husband are both working in steady jobs, the hike in prices has become "unbearable."

"There is not only food where prices are going up by the week, but we also need to afford our rent and credit card repayment," she said.

In public remarks held earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on business to lower the price of basic commodities and food.

The Turkish leader's remarks arrived following public complaints about inflation in the costs of essential products, prompting the Trade Ministry to conduct a nationwide audit of prices earlier this month. Enditem