Consumer prices in Turkey climbed by 5.9 percent in September compared with August and were up by 61.8 percent from the same month in 2000, the state statistics institute said on Wednesday, October 3.
Wholesale prices increased by 5.4 percent in September from the previous month and by 74.7 percent the same period a year earlier, the institute said. Turkish inflation on a 12-month basis stood at 57.5 percent in August, 56.3 percent in July and 56.1 percent in June.
Inflation skyrocketed after a severe financial crisis, sparked by fears of political instability, hit Turkey in February, forcing the government to float the Turkish lira, which has so far lost about half of its value against the dollar. The move also weighed on an IMF-backed economic program under which Turkey managed to pull its chronic inflation down to 39 percent in 2000, a record-low point in recent years.
In May, Turkey introduced a new recovery package, which won a multi-billion-dollar aid package from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Under the new adjustments Ankara projects year-end inflation to be around 60 percent and the economy to contract by 7.5 to eight percent in 2001 before growing by five percent next year. ― (AFP, Ankara)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
