Turkeys inflation soars to 73%, a 23-year high, as food and energy costs skyrocket

Turkeys inflation soars to 73%, a 23-year high, as food and energy costs skyrocket

Turkey's inflation for the month of May rose by an eye-watering 73.5% year on year, its highest in 23 years, as the country grapples with soaring food and energy costs and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's long-running unorthodox strategy on monetary policy. Food prices in the country of 84 million rose 91.6% year on year, the country's statistics agency reported, bringing into sharp view the pain that regular consumers face as supply chain problems, rising energy costs and Russia's war in Ukraine feed into global inflation. Turkey has enjoyed rapid growth for years, but . The result has been a plummeting Turkish lira and far less spending power for the average Turk. Erdogan instructed the country's central bank — which analysts say has no independence from him — to repeatedly slash borrowing rates last year even as inflation continued to rise. Central bank chiefs who expressed opposition to this course of action were fired; by the spring of 2021, Turkey's central bank had seen four different governors in two years. The Turkish president vowed to deliver a new economic model that would bring about a boom in export wealth thanks to a cheaper lira, and then tackle inflation by getting rid