Turkey’s year-on-year inflation dropped to 39.59% in May, official data released on Monday showed, broadly in line with expectations after the government made natural gas free to offset price rises.
Consumer prices increased 0.04% from a month earlier, the data showed.
The country’s high inflation and an acute cost-of-living crisis pose major challenges for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s newly formed government, with local elections only 10 months away. Erdogan, who adamantly pursued a policy of cutting interest rates to boost economic growth despite a plunge in the Turkish lira and soaring prices, signaled a departure from his unconventional economic policy on Saturday by tapping Mehmet Simsek, a former economic czar who enjoys international credibility, as his new finance and treasury minister.
Turkey’s consumer inflation hit a 24-year high of 85.5% late last year before easing in the ensuing months, largely due to a favorable base effect stemming from lower annual price increases in comparison to the respective previous periods.
