Is there no respite in sight for the Turkish lira? – The National

Is there no respite in sight for the Turkish lira? – The National

When I rented my first Istanbul apartment, in mid-2013, the Turkish economy was humming and 2 lira were equal to 1 US dollar. A year later, the lira had roughly the same value and, to me, the recently arrived ex-patriot, Turkey’s currency seemed relatively stable and unworthy of concern – which is precisely when the bottom began to fall out.

By late summer 2015, the lira sat at three per dollar, spurring my landlord to increase my rent by about one third. By early 2017, the lira had fallen to nearly four per dollar and some Turkey watchers wondered if that might be the end of the decline.

Instead, the lira crossed the five-versus-the dollar threshold in mid-2018 and hit six a year later. Then the pandemic arrived: inflation and unemployment have been persistently high over the past 20 months as some 1.5 million Turkish citizens have been driven into poverty. Last week, after a midnight decree from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed three central bank officials, the lira fell to nine versus the dollar and continued to drop.