- 7-Eleven owner restructures to fight takeover
- Sri Lanka recovering faster than expected: World Bank
- Hong Kong, Shanghai rally as most markets track Wall St record
- Uniqlo owner reports record annual earnings
- Hong Kong, Shanghai rally as markets track Wall St record
- Indonesia biomass drive threatens key forests: report
- Mumbai mourns Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
- China opens $71 bn 'swap facility' to boost markets
- Asian markets track Wall St record as Hong Kong, Shanghai stabilise
- 'Denying my potential': women at Japan's top university call out gender imbalance
- China's central bank says opens up $70.6 bn in liquidity to boost market
- Youth facing unprecedented wave of violence, UN envoy warns
- 'A casino in every kitchen': Brazil's online gambling craze
- Nobel chemistry winner sees engineered proteins solving tough problems
- Discord seen as online home for renegades
- US forecasts severe solar storm starting Thursday
- Ratan Tata: Indian mogul who built a global powerhouse
- One dead as storm Kirk tears through Spain, Portugal, France
- Indian business titan Ratan Tata dead at 86
- Fed minutes highlight divisions over rate cut decision
- Steve McQueen debuts new WWII film at London festival
- Nobel winners hope protein work will spur 'incredible' breakthroughs
- What are proteins again? Nobel-winning chemistry explained
- AI steps into science limelight with Nobel wins
- Overshooting 1.5C risks 'irreversible' climate impact: study
- Demis Hassabis, from chess prodigy to Nobel-winning AI pioneer
- Global stocks diverge as Chinese shares tumble
- Time runs out in Florida to flee Hurricane Milton
- Chad issues warning ahead of more devastating floods
- Creator's death no bar to new 'Dragon Ball' products
- Chinese stocks tumble on lack of fresh stimulus
- Trio wins chemistry Nobel for protein design, prediction
- Braving war: Lebanon's 'badass' airline defies odds
- US weighs Google breakup in landmark trial
- Chinese stocks tumble on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- 7-Eleven owner confirms new takeover offer from Couche-Tard
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Putin: Bob Woodward book
- Neural networks, machine learning? Nobel-winning AI science explained
- Boeing delivers 27 MAX jets in September despite strike
- Stock markets diverge as Hong Kong sinks, oil prices fall
- US trade gap narrowest in five months as imports slip
Turkey's inflation slows for third month ahead of election
Turkey's inflation rate slowed for a third successive month in January, official data showed Friday, after a record that threw the economy into chaos and imperilled President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's chances in May 14 polls.
Consumer prices grew at an annualised rate of 57.7 percent in January compared to 64.3 percent in December, according to the state statistics agency.
It peaked at 85.5 percent in October -- the highest rate of Erdogan's two-decade rule.
The reading delivers a welcome boost for Erdogan heading into a close presidential and parliamentary election in which he will seek to extend his mercurial rule until 2028.
Economists attribute the slowdown in part to a slide in the price of Turkey's energy imports.
Natural gas prices have fall back to early 2022 levels after soaring in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
But a part of the slowdown is also linked to a statistical anomaly that compares the past months' prices to a meteoric pace that followed a late 2021 currency collapse.
The rate "will drop further this quarter, perhaps below 45 percent year-on-year in March, as the surge in prices following the 2021 currency crisis falls out of the annual price comparison," Capital Economics said in a report.
- Bump in polls -
The slowdown coincides with a bump in Erdogan's approval numbers heading into what promises to be a close election race.
The opposition has been pillorying Erdogan's handling of the economy -- particularly his unorthodox belief that high interest rates accelerate inflation instead of slowing it down.
Erdogan has been a lifelong opponent of high borrowing costs and used campaign speeches to attack the "interest rate lobby".
He has previously cited Islamic rules against usury to justify his push for the central bank to lower its benchmark interest rate.
Other central banks across the world have been raising their rates to tame inflation.
The Turkish central bank's current interest rate of nine percent makes real interest rates in the country -- calculated as the difference between borrowing costs and inflation --- a staggering minus 47.7 percent.
This sharply limits banks' appetite to lend money and encourages consumers to spend before their liras lose value.
The unusual situation has contributed to a slowdown in Turkey's once healthy economic growth rate.
The Turkish economy contracted by 0.1 percent between July and September of 2022.
"Economic growth will continue to slow and President Erdogan could put pressure on the (central bank) to loosen policy ahead of this year's election," Capital Economics said.
H.Meyer--CPN