December 21 (SeeNews) - Turkey's central bank said it lowered its one-week repo rate from 15% to 14% amidst high inflation levels.
"Increase in inflation in November has been driven by developments in exchange rates and supply side factors such as the rise in global food and agricultural commodity prices, supply constraints, and demand developments. The Committee decided to complete the use of the limited room implied by transitory effects of supply-side factors and other factors beyond monetary policy’s control on price increases and reduced the policy rate by 100 basis points," the central bank said in a statement last week.
Current account balance is expected to post a surplus in 2022 due to the strengthening of the upward trend in exports, the central bank said, adding that strengthening of the improvement trend in current account balance is important for price stability objective.
"Cumulative impact of the recent policy decisions will be monitored in the first quarter of 2022," it said.
According to the most recent data published by TurkStat, the country's consumer price index (CPI) rose 21.31% year-on-year in November, after increasing by an annual 19.89% in October. CPI added 3.51% month-on-month in November, following a 2.39% increase in the previous month.
The central bank last changed its policy rate in November, cutting it to 15% from 16% to eliminate risks to the inflation outlook.