Erdem Başçi: Recent economic and financial developments in Turkey Speech by Mr Erdem Başçi, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, at the press conference for the presentation of the July 2015 Inflation Report, Ankara, 30 July 2015. *  *  *  Accompanying charts can be found at the end of the speech. Distinguished Guests, Welcome to the briefing held to convey the main messages of the Inflation Report of July 2015. The report typically summarizes the economic outlook underlying monetary policy decisions, shares our evaluations on macroeconomic developments and presents our medium-term inflation forecasts, which were revised in view of the developments in the last quarter, along with our monetary policy stance. In addition to the main text, the report includes six boxes entailing interesting and up-to-date analyses on various topics. These boxes in the Report look into the information content of credit in explaining inflation, scrutinize the taxation in the Turkish tobacco products market, analyze the export-inflation relationship in food products, examine the use of survey data in short-term GDP forecasts, elaborate on the effect of oil prices on exports, and present information on the government spending multiplier. The titles of the boxes are shown on the slide. All of these analyses shed light on noteworthy issues in the Turkish economy. I strongly recommend that you read these boxes, which will soon be published on our website. I would like to commence my speech by reviewing the global economic outlook, given its undeniable influence on our policies.
Such low real interest rates would normally lead to GDP and inflation abroad being unreasonably high. If reality and models differ, it is in my opinion reality that applies. In the current abnormal times, models and historical patterns do not work so well and should to a great extent be replaced by judgement. In my opinion, the forecasts for inflation and GDP abroad under the current abnormal circumstances are compatible with the low interest rates abroad. Monetary policy alternatives in October I would thus claim that the assumption in the main scenario that policy rates abroad will be high is unrealistic, and that it is more reasonable to assume a forecast for policy rates abroad that is compatible with market expectations of interest rates abroad. This also means assuming the prevailing actual long interest rates abroad with regard to the effect on the exchange rate. Figure 9 shows monetary policy alternatives, all under the assumption of a forecast for policy rates abroad in line with market expectations, that is, a forecast for policy rates abroad that follows the grey curve in Figure 7. Figure 9a shows different interest rate paths. The red broken curve, called “Main scenario repo rate path”, is the main scenario’s repo rate path. The blue broken curve, called “Riksbank’s reaction function”, shows the repo rate path arising from the Riksbank’s historical reaction function when policy rates abroad are compatible with the prevailing market expectations. The yellow broken curve, called “Market repo rate path”, shows the prevailing market expectations for the repo rate.