ISTANBUL (AFP) – Annual inflation slowed in Turkiye in January for the eighth consecutive month, official figures showed yesterday.
Consumer prices rose by 42.1 per cent year-on-year, compared with 44.3 per cent a month earlier, figures from Turkiye’s TUIK statistics institute said.
Turkiye has experienced double-digit inflation since 2019, making life increasingly more expensive for millions of people, notably hitting the cost of education, housing, healthcare and restaurants and hotels. The annual rate peaked at 75 per cent in May before starting to ease from June.
On January 23, Turkiye’s central bank lowered its key interest rate to 45 per cent from 50 per cent in December, saying its efforts to tame sky-high inflation were starting to pay off.
The monthly inflation accelerated to five per cent in January, compared to one per cent the previous month, TUIK data showed.
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said the increase was due to “seasonal effects” and vowed inflation would keep on falling down, in a message on X.
Chief emerging markets economist at London-based Capital Economics William Jackson said in a policy note that a jump in monthly inflation was “always likely” given the minimum wage hike around the turn of the year.
The net monthly minimum wage has been raised by 30 per cent to TRY22,104 (USD600), beginning from January 1.
The official inflation figures are disputed by the ENAG group of independent economists, which publishes its own monthly figures and gave a January year-on-year estimate of 81 per cent.
