Şimşek

The Central Bank’s main goal this year is to increase the efficiency of monetary policies Governor Murat Çetinkaya told Reuters in an interview on Jan. 25. Çetinkaya, speaking by telephone from the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, said that the Bank will do any monetary policy steps to bring inflation down to single digits. Turkey’s annual inflation stood at 11.92 percent at the end of 2017, far above the Bank’s official target of 5 percent. “I want to emphasize again that we will maintain a tight monetary policy decisively until the inflation outlook displays a significant improvement, independent of base effects and temporary factors, and becomes consistent with the targets”, he added. But investors have been skeptical about the Bank’s ability to bring down inflation, because Turkey political authorities claim for for lower rates to fuel bank lending and boost the economy. Çetinkaya said the government’s fiscal policy was supportive of the Bank’s efforts to fight inflation. Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Şimşek said he recognized that Turkey has an inflation problem and vowed that the government is taking the issue seriously.