April 15 (SeeNews) - Turkey's central bank said it decided to maintain its one-week repo rate unchanged at 14% amidst high inflation levels.
"Increase in inflation in the recent period has been driven by rising energy costs resulting from geopolitical developments, temporary effects of pricing formations that are not supported by economic fundamentals, strong negative supply shocks caused by the rise in global energy, food and agricultural commodity prices," the central bank said in a statement published on Thursday.
The bank expects the disinflation process to start on the back of measures taken and decisively pursued for sustainable price and financial stability along with the decline in inflation owing to the base effect and the resolution of the ongoing regional conflict, it also said.
While the cumulative impact of the recent policy decisions is being monitored, to create an institutional basis for sustainable price stability, the comprehensive review of the policy framework continues with the aim of encouraging permanent and strengthened liraisation in all policy tools of the central bank, the statement read.
The central bank will continue to use all available instruments decisively within the framework of liraisation 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, it added.
According to the most recent data published by TurkStat, Turkey's consumer price index rose by rose by 61.1% year-on-year in March, after increasing by an annual 54.4% in February.
The central bank cut its policy rate to 14% from 15% in December 2021.