Turkish Central Bank to continue firm steps for price stability

By Tuba Sahin and Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (AA) – The Turkish Central Bank is focusing on ensuring permanent price stability while implementing a steady monetary policy, the bank’s Governor Naci Agbal said on Friday.

"We will continue to take firm steps towards achieving price stability through a confidence-oriented monetary policy in the upcoming period," Agbal wrote on the bank's blog.

Stressing the importance of confidence in the economy, Agbal said this makes monetary policy more effective and boosts its power to enhance expectations.

"In this context, the first step a central bank should take to achieve its goal is to make economic actors trust in monetary policy," he noted.

Agbal underlined that the bank's first priority and the main task is to ensure permanent price stability.

Touting the bank’s recent moves such as interest rate hikes, changes to reserve requirements, and simplification steps, Agbal said those measures were taken to support this paradigm shift in monetary policy and build confidence.

"With all these steps, we aim to achieve one goal: Permanent price stability," he said.

In the days to come one of the bank’s priorities, as part of its communication policy, will be to explain the importance of price stability and related policies to all stakeholders and to raise awareness of the fight against inflation.

"The support of every member of our society is crucial for reaching the target of 5% inflation rate in 2023, the centennial year of our Republic," Agbal said.