ANKARA: Turkish Central Bank has decided to decrease interest rates by 0.25 points. Turkey’s Central Bank Governor Erdem Başçı has long been under pressure to decrease interest rates by President Erdoğan. Erdoğan’s calls for a rate decrease have been slammed as an infringement on the independence of the bank, as well as a cause for the devaluation of the lira versus the dollar.
The Central Bank had announced it would make its decision regarding the rates on Feb. 24, based on the fact that the drop in inflation in January was less than 1 percent. The next day Erdoğan had hit back, “It is called an independent board, but this is where we end up. We have to be at a better place, we have to succeed at this.”
