Turkish Finance Minister's promise to bring down inflation to single digits resurfaces one year later
Turkish Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati’s promise from last year to bring down the inflation rate to single digits by the 2023 elections, has resurfaced as official data showed the annual price increase at 50.5% in March.
Duvar English
Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati’s tweet from last year in which he had said the country would see single-digit inflation by the time of 2023 elections, has resurfaced as the government-run Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) reported an annual inflation rate of 50.51% on April 3.
On March 3, 2022, Nebati had tweeted: “We will enter 2023 June elections with a single-digit inflation figure. Let’s not forget that there is really an easiness that comes along with every difficulty.”
On April 3, Nebati voiced his optimism once again, saying that the government “will lower the inflation in a gradual and persistent way.”
“The inflation that increased up to 85% in October 2022, decreased to the level of 50.5% as of March 2023, with the effect of the well-timed steps that we have taken,” Nebati tweeted.
Although TÜİK announced an annual inflation rate of 50.51% in March, ENAG Inflation Research Group, an independent institution set up in 2020 to track the country’s inflation, reported the inflation rate as 112.51%.
Inflation has been stoked by a currency crisis at the end of 2021 and hit a 24-year peak of 85.51% in October 2022. The central bank cut its policy rate despite soaring inflation to preserve growth momentum.
Economists and government officials expect the Feb. 6 earthquakes, which damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings, to cost more than $50 billion and shave one to two percentage points off the country's economic growth this year.