Turkey’s finance chief says doomsayers are wrong about inflation

Turkey’s finance chief says doomsayers are wrong about inflation

Bloomberg / Istanbul

Turkey’s newly appointed finance chief said the country’s inflation will peak months earlier and at a level far lower than predicted by top Wall Street banks.

After a run on the lira touched off the fastest inflation in nearly two decades, Treasury and Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati laid out an agenda that puts the spotlight on prices and takes some of the pressure off the central bank.

Consumer-price growth won’t accelerate after this month – and should remain largely flat until a seasonal improvement in the cost of food leads to a general slowdown in the summer, Nebati said in an interview on Thursday.

The scenario may seem far-fetched after the lira lost as much as half its value in three months and with interest rates adjusted for prices likely stuck well below zero for months to come.

It’s also a view that flies in the face of rising pessimism from the likes of JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, whose economists predict last year’s currency crisis could send inflation beyond 50% in the first half – it ended last year at 36% – and foresee little relief until later in 2022.

When prodded on the direction