Turkey’s annual inflation rate slowed in April for the 11th month in a row, official data showed Monday.
Consumer price increases slowed to 37.9 percent, down from 38.1 percent in March, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
Turkey has experienced double-digit inflation since 2019, making life increasingly more expensive for millions of people.
The decline came as Turkey struggled to contain the political fallout from the jailing of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s biggest political rival, İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
His removal sent the Turkish lira to record lows against the dollar and sparked the country’s worst street protests in over a decade.
Month-on-month, consumer prices rose by 3.0 percent in April with the surge notably affecting education costs (79.2 percent), housing (74 percent), hotels and restaurants (41.8 percent) and healthcare spending (41.9 percent).
Turkey’s annual inflation exceeded 75 percent in May 2024, before starting to slow in June.
The decline prompted the Turkish Central Bank to lower its benchmark interest rate from 50 percent to 42.5 percent, although last month it hiked the rate to 46 percent over the unrest generated by İmamoğlu’s arrest and uncertainty about US tariffs.
Official inflation figures are disputed by independent economists from the Inflation Research Group (ENAG), who said the year-on-year rise was 73.8 percent in April.
Since İmamoğlu’s arrest, the lira has been trading at a historic low of around 38 to the dollar.
Economists say the lira’s decline could jeopardize Ankara’s goal of cutting inflation to 24 percent by year’s end, notably by making imports more expensive.
© Agence France-Presse