Turkey maintains rate and tightening bias

     Turkey’s central bank left its policy rate – the one-week repo rate – steady at 24.0 percent,  as expected, citing “some” improvement to the outlook for inflation but cautioned that risks to price still prevail and it will maintain its tight monetary policy stance until there is a “significant improvement” in the outlook for inflation.
      The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT), which has maintained its rate since raising its sharply in September as prices began to rise in response to the fall in the lira’s exchange rate, reiterated its guidance from December that it was keeping a close eye on inflation expectations, prices, the lagged effect of past rate hikes and fiscal policy, confirming that “if needed, further monetary tightening will be delivered.”
     Turkey’s inflation rate has decelerated in the last two months and CBRT said the rebalancing of the economy was becoming more noticeable and import prices and domestic demand had helped improve the outlook for inflation.
      External demand was also maintaining its strength while economic activity was continuing to slow down, partly due to tight financial conditions. The improvement in the current account was expected to continue to improve, the central bank said.
      Headline inflation in December eased to 20.3 percent from 21.62 percent in November and a 15-year high of 25.24 percent in October but most analysts had expected the CBRT to keep its rate steady this month due to the tightening bias that has remained in place since September last year and to avoid any pressure on the lira.
      The CBRT’s medium-term inflation target is 5.0 percent and last November the central bank raised its inflation forecast for 2019 to 15.2 percent from an earlier 9.3 percent and forecast inflation would decelerate to 9.3 percent by the end of 2020.
      September’s 625-basis point rate hike came after two earlier hikes in May and June, with the policy rate rising by a total of 16 percentage points last year.
      The sharp hike in September came after the central bank in July kept its rate steady, disappointing financial markets and raising further doubts over CBRT’s independence from political influence and its commitment to fighting inflation.
      After falling sharply in August, the September hike helped reverse the trend of the lira and since early December last year it has remained relatively stable.
      Today the lira was trading at 5.35 to the U.S. dollar, down a bit over 1 percent this year and down almost one-third since the start of 2018.

     The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey released the following statement by its monetary policy committee:

“Participating Committee Members