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Woman at Ortakcilar street market in Istanbul
Photo: Francisco Seco / dpa
In Turkey, the extremely high inflation slowed down significantly at the end of last year.
Consumer prices rose 64.3 percent in December, the national statistics office said.
In the previous month, inflation was still at 84.4 percent, after marking a 24-year high of 85.5 percent in October.
On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose by 1.2 percent in December.
That was also significantly less than in the previous month, when prices had risen by 2.9 percent.
In addition, the increase in producer prices has weakened noticeably, even if the level is still very high.
Producer prices rose by almost 98 percent in December compared to the same month last year, after around 136 percent in the month before.
The producer prices reflect the selling prices of the producers and usually also have an effect on the consumer's cost of living.
Lira collapse a year ago
Analysts explain the somewhat weaker inflation at the end of last year with so-called base effects.
At the end of 2021 there was a massive drop in the Turkish lira, which resulted in a sharp increase in inflation at the time.
Turkey's longstanding high inflation is being driven by several factors.
The weak national currency, the lira, continues to drive up prices, as it makes goods imported into Turkey more expensive.
Added to this are high energy prices and ongoing problems in the international supply chains, which make many primary products more expensive.
In addition, the Turkish central bank, unlike many other central banks, is not fighting high inflation by raising interest rates.
Rather, it lowered the key interest rate.
dab/dpa
