Central Bank to meet for rate decision this week

ANKARA

All eyes will be on the Central Bank this week as members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will convene on Nov. 24 for the eleventh time this year to decide about the key interest rate.

Markets expect the central bank to deliver a 100 basis points cut at this week’s meeting.

The bank last month slashed its policy rate - one-week repo auction rate - from 12 percent to 10.5 percent.

But it said in a statement released after the rate decision in October that the committee evaluated taking a similar step in the following meeting and ending the rate cut cycle.

It is critically important that financial conditions remain supportive to preserve the growth momentum in industrial production and the positive trend in employment in a period of increasing uncertainties regarding global growth as well as further escalation of geopolitical risks, it added.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in late September that interest rates should decline to a single-digit by the end of the year.

The MPC will hold one more rate-setting meeting on Dec. 22.