With a surprise decision, the Central Bank (CBRT) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) raised the policy rate by 350 basis points to 46 percent on April 17. The Committee raised the Central Bank’s overnight lending rate from 46 percent to 49 percent and the overnight borrowing rate from 41 percent to 44.5 percent. In its written
When President Tayyip Erdoğan began reciting the opening verses of Surah Al-Fath in Arabic during his Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentary group meeting on December 25, amid chants of “Conqueror of Syria,” I wrote in my notebook “We’re going into Syria.” However, launching an operation against the PKK/YPG in Syria is one thing; conquest
Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz unveiled the Medium Term Program (MTP), outlining Ankara’s economic roadmap for the next three years. The MTP marks a crucial juncture for both the country’s economic recovery efforts and the political future of both President Tayyip Erdoğan and Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. While numerous questions arise, the
Unless the Minister of Treasury and Finance or the Governor of the Central Bank is suddenly dismissed, as it happened before, and the current ‘lacking’ economic program continues to be implemented, inflation in Türkiye could reach 40 percent by the end of 2024 and around 30 percent by mid-2025. Even if this happens, Türkiye will
In a bid to curb surging inflation and restore fiscal discipline, Türkish Finance Ministry unveiled an extensive savings plan aimed at reining in public spending. Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz and Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek announced a new “Public Savings Plan” on May 13 at a joint briefing. The savings plan comes as Türkiye
The March 31 local elections in Türkiye marked the most severe defeat for the incumbent AKP in its 20-year reign. This voter backlash was a belated response to a decade of policy missteps that severely disrupted economic stability, especially after September 2021. In the run-up to the general elections in May 2023, the government opened
The Turkish Central Bank’s (CBRT) Monetary Policy Committee (PPK) increased the policy rate by 500 base points from 45 percent to 50 percent at its March 21 meeting. In the statement made by the PPK, which convened under the chairmanship of Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan, it was stated that it was decided to increase
The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) Governor Fatih Karahan, facing the cameras for the first time following the contentious dismissal of the previous Governor Hafize Gaye Erkan from office, announced the first inflation report for the year 2024. Speaking at a press conference on February 8, Karahan stated that the inflation forecasts
The Ministry of Treasury and Finance published Türkiye’s top taxpayers list after 3 years on January 3, revealing that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law and Türkiye’s drone manufacturer Baykar’s chairman, Selçuk Bayraktar, has been the top taxpayer for three years in a row: 2020, 2021, and 2022. First of all, congratulations to Bayraktar. He became
This article is one of the most challenging ones that I have written for a newspaper or any other media outlet. I will explain the reason at the end, but first, let me begin with the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) latest decision. The MPC, raised the one-week