Erdogan Says His Patience on Central Bank Policy Has Limits
Erdogan Says His Patience on Central Bank Policy Has Limits
(Bloomberg) -- Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan resumed his criticism of the nation’s central bank a day after it announced the biggest rate hike of his rule.
“It’s currently my phase of patience but there is a limit to this patience,” Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party in Ankara on Friday. He restated his opinion that higher rates won’t help to slow inflation and warned that his restraint won’t last forever.
The central bank was responding to repeated calls for a rate increase, Erdogan said, and responded with a “quite” big hike. Turkey would see the “results of the independence” of the regulator, he said.
The lira erased gains on the comments and was trading 0.4 percent lower at 6.1058 per dollar at noon in Istanbul.
Thursday’s surprise move buoyed markets that had been mired in a slump for months, triggered by a diplomatic row with the U.S. and then amplified by central bank inaction.
To contact the reporter on this story: Onur Ant in Ankara at oant@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Benjamin Harvey at bharvey11@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Constantine Courcoulas
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