BY DAILY SABAH
The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) on Thursday lowered its key policy rate, or the one-week repo rate, by 150 basis points to 9.0%, in accordance with the market expectations.
The lender said the easing cycle that started in August has come to an end as it was assessed that the current policy rate is at a sufficient level, taking into account the increasing risks to global demand.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) led by Governor Şahap Kavcıoğlu said in a statement that, “The current policy rate is adequate and decided to end the rate-cut cycle that started in August.”
The latest decision to lower the benchmark to 9% from 10.5% was matching the forecasts of all analysts surveyed by Bloomberg and the majority of those surveyed by the Anadolu Agency’s (AA) AA Finance.
The central bank “will continue to use all available instruments decisively within the framework of liraization strategy until strong indicators point to a permanent fall in inflation and the medium-term 5% target is achieved in pursuit of the primary objective of price stability,” the bank said.
According to the latest data, Türkiye’s annual inflation rate was at 85.51% in October, up from 83.45% in September.
The Turkish lira slightly changed after the decision, trading 0.1% lower at 18.6309 per U.S. dollar as of 2:08 p.m.
The national currency has depreciated almost 29% against the greenback this year.
The CBRT had slashed its benchmark by 350 basis points since August.
The bank meanwhile expects inflation to end the year at about 65%.