Central bank set to meet for rate decision

ISTANBUL

The Turkish Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee is set to meet this week to decide on the key interest rate.

Most analysts expect the MPC to keep the policy rate, the one-week repo rate, unchanged at 37 percent at its meeting scheduled for June 11.

The MPC meeting comes days after the official data showed that Türkiye’s annual inflation rate edged up from 32.4 percent in April to 32.6 percent in May with consumer prices advancing 1.7 percent month-on-month.

From May 2023 to March 2025, the Central Bank raised its policy rate from 8.5 percent to 50 percent before holding it steady until December 2024, when it cut rates by 250 basis points to 47.5 percent.

Further easing followed in August, with a 250-basis-point cut to 40.5 percent, and again in October with a 100-basis-point reduction to 39.5 percent.

At its December meeting, the Central Bank lowered the policy rate by 150 basis points to 38 percent.

The bank slashed the rate to 37 percent in January, at the first monetary policy meeting of 2026. At its March and April meeting, the bank kept the rate on hold at 37 percent.

The Turkish economy is “positioned” to withstand severe global economic shocks amid reinforced financial buffers and a favorable trajectory in the current account deficit, Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan said in a speech he delivered at an event in Istanbul on June 5.