Joe Parkinson The Wall Street Journal
Turkey’s central bank rate-setters may have been grateful that the wave of protest engulfing Egypt and other Arab states shifted the market’s attention away from their controversial monetary policy plan this week. Until Thursday, perhaps.Thursday saw the Turkish statistics institute announce that consumer price inflation in Turkey decelerated to 4.9% on the year in December, comfortably below the central bank’s target and marginally lower than expectations. The figure marks the lowest annualized rate of price growth since 1968 when student protest movements were erupting across Europe and Turkey’s current central bank Governor Durmus Yilmaz had just turned 21.
