Chronic inflation

As widely expected, the Turkish Central Bank has kept the key interest rate, the one-week repo auction rate, on hold for an eighth straight month at 50 percent.

While inflation expectations and price behavior tend to improve, they continue to pose risks to the disinflation process, the bank said in a statement released after the Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Nov. 21.

In a widely expected move, Türkiye's Central Bank has left its policy rate unchanged at 50 percent for the sixth month in a row.

In a statement released after the Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Sept. 19, the bank reiterated that it remains highly attentive to inflation risks.

The Central Bank has kept its year-end inflation forecasts for 2024, 2025 and 2026 unchanged, vowing to maintain its cautious stance in monetary policy.

The bank projects that inflation will fall to 38 percent at the end of 2024, while its forecasts for 2025 and 2026 are 14 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

Türkiye's annual inflation rate accelerated from 68.5 percent in March to 69.8 percent in April, the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) showed on May 3.

Consumer prices, which rose 3.16 percent in March, advanced 3.18 percent month-on-month in April.

Japan's consumer prices rose 3.2 percent year-on-year in May, slowing from 3.4 percent in April, government data showed on June 23.

The figure, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, beat market expectations and was higher than the 3.1 percent recorded in March.

Türkiye's Central Bank has kept its inflation projections for end-2023 and end-2024 unchanged at 22.3 percent and 8.8 percent, respectively.

The Central Bank has lifted its end-2022 inflation forecast from a previous 60.4 percent to 65.2 percent.

The bank also increased its estimate for end-2023 from 19.2 percent to 22.3 percent but kept the forecast for 2024 unchanged at 8.8 percent.

Life will continue to become more expensive in the coming months. Inflation is likely to remain high throughout the year. This is what the financier Daniel Donchev predicted on the Bulgarian National Radio.

Bulgaria: 7.8% Annual Inflation in December

Turkey posted a 14.97% annual rise in consumer prices in January, the country's statistical authority announced on Feb. 3. 

The annual figure was up 0.37 percentage points last month, rising from 14.60% in December 2020, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).

The inflation rate in January 2020 stood at 12.15%, data showed.

The Turkish Central Bank on Dec. 24 announced an interest rate hike of two percentage points, above market expectations.

The bank's policy rate - also known as the one-week repo rate - rose to 17 percent, up from 15 percent, the bank said in a statement.