Interest pressure on market dismissed: Turkish official

KAYSERI, Turkey

The realistic monetary policy of the Central Bank and the strong position of the state banks have eliminated the interest pressure on the market, Turkey’s treasury and finance minister said on Friday.

Addressing a businesspeople meeting in Kayseri, central Anatolia, Berat Albayrak recalled that interest rates were lowered by 1,200 basis points during the last five months.

On Thursday, Turkey’s Central Bank cut interest rates by 200 basis points from 14% to 12%.

In 2018, the bank held nine Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meetings as interest rates climbed from 8% to 24% over the course of the year. It dropped the rate gradually to 12% during 12 meetings this year.

"The country was exposed to the largest economic attacks in the history and it left them behind by putting up a strong resistance," Albayrak stressed.

Albayrak added that preliminary indicators show that the normalization process continues robustly.

He also recalled that while the inflation rate was at 24-25% level in 2018, it dropped to 9-10% level currently.

Albayrak said: "As of the next year, we will make the single-digit inflation rate permanent."

* Writing by Gokhan Ergocun from Istanbul