ANKARA – Turkey has fired the governor of its central bank and replaced him with a former finance minister, according to a presidential decree published today in the official gazette, after the lira reached record lows.
Naci Agbal was named the new governor, and no reason was provided in the decree for why his predecessor, Murat Uysal, was replaced after just 16 months on the job.
Uysal was given the role after disagreements between the previous governor, Murat Cetinkaya, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over cutting interest rates.
Erdogan has long railed against high interest rates, and last Saturday, said the country is fighting against a “devil’s triangle of interest rates, exchange rates and inflation”.
Over the past few months, the lira has hit multiple historic lows against the US dollar, and was at 8.52 to the greenback late yesterday.
The Turkish currency has lost nearly 30% of its value against the dollar this year.
Markets are worried about persistently high inflation, which remains in the double-digits, and a sharp drop in foreign currency reserves.
There was hope last month that the central bank would hike the main interest rate because of the weak lira, but markets were disappointed when it was kept unchanged.
The bank stunned investors in September when it raised the policy rate for the first time since 2018, from 8.25% to 10.25%.
The next decision by the bank’s monetary policy committee on interest rates will be on November 19.– AFP, November 7, 2020
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