{"id":32030,"date":"2023-05-03T09:22:15","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T09:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/turkish-inflation-slows-to\/"},"modified":"2023-05-03T09:26:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T09:26:31","slug":"turkish-inflation-slows-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/turkish-inflation-slows-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish inflation slows to 44% ahead of landmark election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Ali Kucukgocmen and Nevzat Devranoglu<\/p>\n<p>ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkish annual inflation slowed to 43.68% in April, official data showed on Wednesday, easing ahead of elections that polls show President Tayyip Erdogan risks losing largely due to a cost-of-living crisis. <\/p>\n<p>Unorthodox rate cuts sought by Erdogan sparked a currency crisis in late 2021, sending inflation  to a 24-year peak of 85.51% last year. It fell in December and touched 50.51% by March with a favourable base effect and relatively stable lira. <\/p>\n<p>The consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.39% in April from a month earlier, the Turkish Statistical Institute said. The official numbers were slightly less than predicted, with a median monthly estimate of 2.60% and an annual forecast of 44% in the latest Reuters poll. <\/p>\n<p>The cost of living crisis has eaten away at household savings and also at Erdogan&#8217;s popularity ahead of the presidential and parliamentary votes on May 14, seen as the president&#8217;s biggest test in his 20-year reign. <\/p>\n<p>Some polls show Erdogan trailing his main opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu. <\/p>\n<p>The base effect that helped lower the annual reading so far this year is expected to wear off in coming months and economists say inflation could rise again. The year-end median estimate was 46.5% in the Reuters poll.<\/p>\n<p>Haluk Burumcekci, of Burumcekci Consulting, predicted that annual inflation could decline until June due to the base effects. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Annual CPI could decrease to at most around 40% levels in the first half of the year and end up in the range of 50-55% for the year,&#8221; he wrote in a note.<\/p>\n<p>Burumcekci also said &#8220;there is uncertainty regarding the balance point of exchange rates and interest rates for the second half of the year due to the elections.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some economists expect a return to orthodox monetary policy after the election no matter the outcome but Erdogan has recently said interest rates will continue to decline as long as he is in power.<\/p>\n<p>Annually, the biggest increase was seen in the health sector with 66.62%, followed by restaurants and hotels with 66.41% and food and non-alcoholic beverages with 53.92%.<\/p>\n<p>On a monthly basis, communication prices rose 5.93%, restaurant and hotel prices rose 4.24% and food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose 3.95%<\/p>\n<p>The domestic producer price index was up 0.81% month-on-month in April for an annual rise of 52.11%, the data showed.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Gareth Jones, Jonathan Spicer, Alexandra Hudson)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/turkish-inflation-slows-to\/people-shop-at-an-open-market-in-istanbul-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4207Z-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4207Z-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ali Kucukgocmen and Nevzat Devranoglu ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkish annual inflation slowed to 43.68% in April, official data showed on Wednesday, easing ahead of elections that polls show President Tayyip Erdogan risks losing largely due to a cost-of-living crisis. Unorthodox rate cuts sought by Erdogan sparked a currency crisis in late 2021, sending inflation to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-32030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4207Z-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32030"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32155,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32030\/revisions\/32155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}