Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.9
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticized the work carried out by head of the country's Central Bank Erdem Basci, Haber7 TV channel reported on Feb.9.
The president said that if the head of the Central Bank is unable to cope with his duties, he will have to answer for that.
Although the government has repeatedly demanded the Central Bank to lower the key interest rates, it hasn't responded to this demand to date, according to Erdogan.
"The inflation in the country is a result of high interest rates, not vice versa," said the president.
Turkish Central Bank lowered the key interest rate (weekly repo rate) by 0.5 percentage points and kept it at 7.75 percent on Jan. 20, while the other two rates - on deposits and overnight loans - were maintained at 7.5 percent and 11.25 percent, respectively.
Previously, head of the Central Bank Erdem Basci said the regulator forecasts that the lowest inflation level in the country in the past 45 years will be recorded in 2015.
It is expected that the consumer price index in Turkey will be 5.2 percent in 2015 and 5 percent in 2016, Basci said that time. "The Central Bank will make every effort to keep the inflation under control. "
Inflation in Turkey was equal to 8.31 percent in 2014.
To keep the exchange rate of TRY at a stable level, Turkey's Central Bank carried out intervention worth $2 billion throughout 2014 however, this attempt was unsuccessful.
The process of strengthening the TRY in 2014 continued until September of that year. The exchange rate of the national currency started cheapening in the subsequent months.
The official exchange rate on Feb.9 is 2.4386 TRY/USD.
Edited by CN
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