Annual inflation in Turkey slowed in January for the eighth consecutive month, Agence France-Presse reported on Monday, citing official figures.
Consumer prices rose by 42.1 percent year-on-year, compared with 44.3 percent a month earlier, figures from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.
Turkey has experienced double-digit inflation since 2019, making life increasingly more expensive for millions of people, notably hitting the cost of education, housing, healthcare and restaurants and hotels.
The annual rate peaked at 75 percent in May before starting to ease from June.
On January 23 Turkey’s central bank lowered its key interest rate to 45 percent from 50 percent in December, saying its efforts to tame sky-high inflation were starting to pay off.
Monthly inflation accelerated to 5 percent in January, compared to 1 percent the previous month, TurkStat data showed.
Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said the increase was due to “seasonal effects” and vowed inflation would continue to fall in a message on X.
William Jackson, chief emerging markets economist at London-based Capital Economics, said in a policy note that a jump in monthly inflation was “always likely” given the minimum wage hike around the turn of the year.
The net monthly minimum wage was raised by 30 percent to 22,104 lira ($600), beginning from January 1.
The official inflation figures are disputed by the ENAG group of independent economists, which publishes its own monthly figures and gave a January year-on-year estimate of 81 percent.