Despite recent major rate hikes
In Turkey, inflation remains at a high level despite the central bank's recent increases in key interest rates. In January, the inflation rate was just under 15 percent, announced the national statistics office in Ankara on Wednesday. The price trend has hardly changed. In December consumer prices in Turkey were up 14.6 percent year on year.
At the beginning of the year, the Turkish inflation rate is higher than it has been since August 2019. In the past few months, the country's central bank has attempted to get inflation under control by increasing interest rates several times, some of which are very strong. Analyst Tatha Ghose from Commerzbank referred to the latest statements from the central bank. The latter warned that inflation dynamics would initially deteriorate in the coming months before the situation can calm down again.
The key interest rate in Turkey is currently 17.0 percent. For comparison: last summer it was 8.25 percent. Since then, monetary policy has changed fundamentally. The change was also underpinned by a change at the top of the central bank in November. The new central bank chief Naci Agbal is an advocate of a tighter monetary policy in the fight against high inflation. In previous years, the country's central bank was known for avoiding higher interest rates as much as possible. In particular, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had spoken out in favor of low interest rates several times.
