An unenviable fate is predicted for Turkey: fantastic consumer price inflation of up to 90% could “cover” this country before the end of this year. Tourism, of course, is at risk, as the hotel and restaurant business is in the forefront of the ranking of the most expensive industries. This forecast was presented by the Turkish newspaper Ahval.
“Turkey's consumer price inflation could rise to 90% at the end of this year, breaking the record since the crisis of the 1990s,” the publication's experts said, citing data provided by the Dutch financial company ING Group. At the moment, inflation in the country is reaching almost 80%, 79.6% to be exact, accelerating since June, they add.
“Going forward, we expect inflation to peak in the 85-90% range in October before decline to around 70% at the end of the year,” Muhammet Merkan, chief economist at ING Turkey, said in a report. He also noted that there is a risk that the pace will be even higher – it all depends on “currency movements”.
The expert also recalled that the Turkish lira has lost more than a quarter of its value this year, which led to an increase in prices for imported goods and materials. And this happened against the backdrop of a sharp global surge in inflation caused by higher energy prices and supply constraints, which exacerbates the situation in Turkey.
As experts emphasize, the calculations of economists are felt by the population of Turkey “on themselves” – and suffer from drop in their standard of living as prices rise. Istanbul, for example, reported a 99.1% increase in Turkey's cost of living.
At the same time, we recall that hotels and restaurants continue to remain in the top five most expensive sectors of the “national economy” in Turkey – such data was presented by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), which published consumer and producer price indices for July. Among the industries with the highest price growth in July, the hotel and restaurant business took the bronze, taking third place in terms of price growth – by almost 2.5%. As for the areas with the largest increase in prices for the year, hotels and restaurants are in fifth place. They showed a 79.14% increase, and such a rate of price growth is really shocking. In the first place – not alien to tourism transportation, which showed almost 120% price growth, food prices also increased by almost 95% over the year and an important product for “all inclusive” – alcoholic beverages – by 83%. Read the details here.
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