Turkey‘s inflation rate increased in January by 2.46 percent over the previous month, with the consumer price index coming in at an annualized 9.22 percent, data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) revealed on Friday.
The inflation basket was recently reshuffled by the authorities, among other things, cutting the importance of foodstuffs, while increasing the weight of other items such as alcohol.
Fruit and vegetable prices, among other food and non-alcoholic beverage items, have recently been on the rise. TurkStat said food prices rose by 6.37 percent last month.
The lira weakened against the dollar after the inflation data came in and was trading at about 3.74 to the greenback. This time last year, the Turkish currency was at 2.9 to the dollar.
The World Bank this week lowered its forecast for Turkey‘s growth to 2.1 percent from 3.1 percent, saying recovery in the fourth quarter was weaker than expected, but predicted exports and public spending would help the economy in 2017.
Last week, Fitch downgraded Turkey‘s sovereign debt to below investment grade, following steps taken by the other two major rating agencies. At the same time, S&P put the country‘s bonds on a negative outlook.
The central bank this week raised its inflation outlook. The bank has raised some interest rates recently.