“Yes, exactly Mr. Erdogan, the result is really obvious”
Turkey’s opposition leader Meral Aksener, the head of the Good Party (IYIP) has ridiculed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest remarks that he praised his economy management saying “the result is obvious”.
“Yes, exactly Mr. Erdogan, the ‘result’ is really obvious,” Aksener said on Twitter, sharing Erdogan’s statements he made during a live broadcast on state-run TRT.
Evet aynen Sayın Erdoğan.
— Meral Akşener (@meral_aksener) February 1, 2023
“Netice” gerçekten ortada…
Değil mi @ProfBilgeYilmaz @UmitOzlale? pic.twitter.com/zAR8D3TYRZ
Erdogan on Wednesday said despite other countries around the world have raised the interest rates, Turkey will continue to lower it, reiterating his unorthodox view that the lower interest rates lead to lower inflation.
Claiming that interest and inflation are directly proportional, “Some might not believe this, but the interest is the cause, inflation is the result,” he said, adding that “My field is the economy, and the result is obvious”.
Turkey's inflation has surged to a 24-year record high in October by 85.5 percent, after the central bank adopted a rate-cutting policy despite increasing prices. Acting on the orders of Erdogan who insists on low interest rates, the central bank has lowered the benchmark one-week repo rate from 19 percent to 9 percent since 2021 autumn. Following the rate cuts in the country, Turkish lira lost around 44 percent of its value in 2021, and a quarter more in 2022.
Erdogan says rate hikes are against his Islamic beliefs and insists that low interest rates lead to lower inflation, an opinion that jars with conventional economic theory that says higher interest rates slow inflation.
