Istanbul July 4 2022: Turkey’s annual inflation rate jumped to a 24-year high of 78.62% in June, data showed on Monday, just above forecast, driven by the impact of the Ukraine war, soaring commodity prices and a slide in the lira since a December crisis.
Inflation has surged since last autumn, when the lira slumped after the central bank gradually cut its policy rate by 500 basis points to 14%, in an easing cycle sought by President Tayyip Erdogan to boost economic growth.
The latest figures showed consumer prices rose 4.95% in June, compared to a Reuters poll forecast of 5.38%. Annually, consumer price inflation was forecast to be 78.35%.
June consumer price inflation was driven by transportation prices, which surged 123.37%, and food and non-alcoholic drinks prices, which jumped 93.93%, the Turkish Statistical Institute data showed.
It was the highest annual inflation reading since September 1998, when annual inflation hit 80.4% and Turkey was battling to end a decade of chronically high inflation. The lira was unchanged at 16.78% after the data.
Inflation has been further stoked this year by the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The lira currency shed 44% against the dollar last year and is down 21% this year.
The domestic producer price index climbed 6.77% month-on-month in June for an annual rise of 138.31%.
