One of the leadfing economists and Tv personality Mustafa Sonmez reports an inside scoop from the halls of Central Bank of Turkey in his new al Monitor article. According to Sonmez, “Alarmed by resurging price increases, central bank officials reportedly believe that a rate hike of up to 10 percentage points is an inevitable part of monetary tightening to tackle inflation”.
Turkey’s central bank is considering a mammoth rate hike of up to 10 percentage points next week to step up the fight against a sticky inflation and boost Ankara’s economic credentials in the eyes of foreign investors, Al-Monitor has learned.
Standart Chartered: Substantial rate hikes to continue in Türkiye
Sources close to the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (PPK) told Al-Monitor that a possibly drastic hike at the committee’s Sept. 21 meeting stem from concerns over monthly consumer inflation topping 9% in July and August as well as other factors inhibiting efforts to rein in prices.
With a new economic leadership in charge since June, such a whopping increase would be seen as cementing a reversal from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unorthodox policies of the past several years, largely blamed for Turkey’s current economic woes. The central bank already delivered a bigger-than-expected hike of 750 basis points in August, bringing its benchmark one-week repo rate to 25%. Whether Erdogan — a self-declared “enemy of interest rates” — and his inner circle will approve of another massive hike remains unknown, but the PPK’s new members, who were appointed as part of Erdogan’s overhaul in the country’s economy management after his reelection, are inclined to raise it by up to 10 percentage points and follow up with other monetary-tightening measures, the sources said.
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