Annual inflation in crisis-ridden Turkey fell to 33.4 percent in February compared to 35.9 percent in January, while consumer prices went up by 1.8 percent over the same period, according to official figures released Saturday, March 3.
Wholesale prices increased by 2.6 percent in February from the previous month, according to the State Institute of Statistics (DIE).
Turkey failed, by the end of last year, to push down inflation to between 20 and 25 percent as part of an ambitious anti-inflation drive.
But it did bring inflation down to 39 percent, marking the first time since the end of the 1980s that figures went below the 50 percent mark.
A political clash last week fueled a run on the lira, which forced the government to abandon a currency peg and watch the lira plunge around 30 percent against the dollar, wrecking Turkey's anti-inflation campaign.
Turkey is struggling to put its economy back on track after it floated the lira, breaching a three-year economic reform program backed by a four billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund. — (AFP, Ankara)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
