Price increases moderated in Türkiye in November, official data showed Monday, signaling that inflation pressures that have been plaguing consumers for about a year and a half might be finally easing.
The annual consumer price index (CPI) dipped to 84.39% last month, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced, ending a 17-month-long cycle of rises.
It dropped from a 24-year peak of 85.51% in October and marked the first time that annual inflation has eased since May 2021, when the CPI stood at 16.6%.
Economists had forecast inflation would cool toward year-end, largely due to favorable base effects from late 2021.
"As we have previously stated in various platforms, we have entered a downward trend in inflation, leaving the peak behind, unless there is an unexpected global development," Treasury and Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati said.
Weaker prices of commodities and some improvement in global conditions played a role in the lower rate of inflation, Nebati wrote on Twitter after the data release.
Month-over-month, consumer prices rose 2.88%, TurkStat said, compared with 3.51% in September.
It is compared to a Reuters poll forecast of 3%. Annually, consumer price inflation was seen at 84.65% and is expected to touch 69% by year-end.
The domestic producer price index was up 0.74% month-over-month in November for an annual rise of 136.02%, the data showed.
Last month, the central bank wrapped up the easing cycle that saw it lowering its benchmark policy rate by 5 percentage points since August to 9% from 14%, in line with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's calls for stimulus.
Erdoğan and his government have emphasized low rates to boost production, investments, employment and exports with the aim of achieving a current account surplus, which it says will lead to a lasting fall in inflation.
Erdoğan says high rates cause inflation and he had called for single-digit rates by year-end. He has said the economic model is expected to yield results in the new year.
The president at the weekend forecasted that consumer price rises would soon slow down.
"We will witness the rapid descent of inflation soon and we will see together that the dirty scenarios built on this trouble are torn and thrown away," he noted.
The sharpest increases in annual prices in November were in the transportation sector, at 107%, followed by food and non-alcoholic drinks prices at 102.55%, according to official data.
The biggest monthly rise was in the food and non-alcoholic drinks sector, which was up 5.75%, while alcoholic drinks prices climbed 3.19%.
Nebati also said various measures that Türkiye adopted, including foreign exchange-protected Turkish lira deposits, also had an effect on inflation.
The mechanism was introduced a year ago to compensate lira depositors for foreign currency fluctuations.
The lira traded at 18.6370 after the data, little changed from a close of 18.625 on Friday. The currency has been mostly flat since the summer.
Inflation is seen falling to 69% next month, the median estimate of 13 economists in the Reuters poll showed. Forecasts ranged from 67% to 74.8%.
Last month, the central bank predicted 65.2% inflation at year-end.
