VIENNA
Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci backed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent call for a cut in interest rates.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Zeybekci said the current interest rates imposed by the central bank are unreasonable.
“All of Turkey’s economic expectations for 2015 are quite positive,” Zeybekci said. “Suffering from high interest rates while being one of the advanced economies is unacceptable.”
Turkey’s monthly inflation rate in December was down for the first time in 2014, hitting a 10-month low of 8.17 percent, calculated as a moving average of the past 12 months, the Turkish Statistical Institute recently announced.
Also, the current account deficit in the January to November 2014 period narrowed to $38.7 billion, a decrease of $18 billion, compared to the same period a year earlier.
A slump in oil prices from $110 to $50 per barrel is expected to halve Turkey’s oil imports and further reduce the current account deficit and inflation in 2015.
“I think that keeping silent about this (high interest rates) is wrong,” Zeybekci said. “I believe Turkey should get past this period of high rates as soon as possible.”
