Turkey inflation hits 61% as fallout from Ukraine war continues
Consumer inflation has surged to a fresh two-decade high in Turkey as external headwinds spawned by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine add to the country’s own economic woes.
Turkey’s annual consumer inflation jumped to a new two-decade high of 61.1% in March from 54.4% the previous month as prices rose nearly 5.5% in March alone, fueled by the commodity shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Producer prices, meanwhile, rose by about 9.2% in March, bringing annual producer inflation to nearly 115%, according to data released Monday by the Turkish Statistical Institute.
Standing out in the consumer inflation is the transport group, where prices rose more than 13% in March. Fuel prices, in particular, saw a string of almost daily hikes as a result of global oil price increases last month. The price of diesel, for instance, rose by an unprecedented 32% over a month. And with the added impact of price increases in the import-reliant automobile category, the transport group became the leading driver of inflation in March.
In the food group, which is assigned a 25.3% weight in the consumer inflation index, prices rose 4.7% in March, stoked by problems in the supply of a number of imported goods such as sunflower oil due to the war in Ukraine. Annual food inflation topped 70%.
