Şimşek, Erkan to meet investors in US this week

ISTANBUL

Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek and Central Bank Governor Hafize Gaye Erkan are scheduled to travel to the United States later this week to meet investors.

As part of the “Investor Day” event to be held on Jan. 11, Erkan will make a presentation to foreign investors on monetary policy and inflation.

Şimşek is also expected to deliver a speech on fiscal policy and the financing outlook.

Following Erkan’s presentation and Şimşek’s speech, sessions will be held on Turkish assets, disinflation, foreign reserves strategy, banking sector and macroprudential policy framework.

At the end of the event, which will be organized by JPMorgan in New York, Erkan is expected to respond to questions from investors.

The Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will hold its first rate-setting meeting of the year on Jan. 25.

As widely expected, the bank hiked the policy rate – the one-week repo auction rate - by 250 basis points to 42.5 percent on Dec. 21.

Between June and December last year, the bank raised the policy rate by a cumulative 3,400 basis points as part of its efforts to bring inflation under control, which climbed from 61.98 percent in November to 64.77 percent in December.

Despite the annual increase, the downward trend in monthly inflation continued in the final month of last year.

Consumer prices rose by 2.93 percent in December, after advancing 3.3 percent in November and 3.4 percent in October. The monthly increase was 9.5 percent in July last year.

The bank unveiled its monetary policy for 2024 at the end of December in which it said it will maintain its reserve build-up strategy and ensure continuation of the stable uptrend in international reserves this year.