Turkey's inflation to be single-digit by mid-2023: Minister

Istanbul, Jan 16 (IANS) Turkey's annual inflation rate will be in single digit when the country will hold its presidential and parliamentary election in mid-2023, Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati has said.

"With the fiscal policies and the steps we will take, we will enter the election time next year... with single-digit inflation," the Minister was quoted as saying on Saturday by the state-run Anadolu agency.

Speaking to heads of non-governmental organisations in Istanbul, Nebati described the inflation, which hit 36.08 per cent year-on-year in December 2021 as a "hump," noting that the figure would improve after the first quarter of this year, Xinhua news agency reported.

Turkey has also been struggling against the sharp depreciation of the national currency in foreign exchange markets. The lira's losses against the US dollar reached 44 per cent last year.

According to the Minister, the government's new economic scheme adopted on December 20, 2021, to rescue the currency has been working well, and the conversion of forex holdings to the Turkish lira will accelerate even further in the coming weeks.

He noted that more than 131 billion liras ($9.69 billion) had been deposited in accounts as of Friday under the new scheme.

One dollar was traded at 13.53 liras on Saturday in the afternoon.