Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday that the trend of falling interest rates in Turkey would continue after the central bank more than halved its key interest rate starting in July of last year, Reuters reported.
In a speech to lawmakers from his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in parliament, Erdoğan said annual inflation this year would hopefully be below the country’s year-end target of 8.5 percent.
The Turkish central bank’s independence from the government has been in dispute since President Erdoğan, a self-declared “enemy of interest rates,” fired the former governor for refusing to cut rates.
Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, a son-in-law of Erdoğan, in January said Turkey’s central bank was as independent as US Federal Reserve.