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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey, announces a reduction in VAT from 18 percent to 8 percent.
Photo: Burhan Ozbilici / dpa
In the fight against the enormously high inflation, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is reducing VAT on various everyday products.
Erdoğan announced that cleaning supplies, toilet paper, serviettes and baby diapers now only cost eight percent instead of the previous 18 percent.
Consumer prices in Turkey rose 54.5 percent in February, the highest in 20 years.
The fall in the national currency, the lira, and rising food and energy prices contributed to this.
Nevertheless, and despite the additional pressure on prices caused by the war in Ukraine, the Turkish central bank did not raise its key interest rate.
She left it at 14.0 percent in her last decision in mid-March.
Erdoğan is a declared opponent of interest rate hikes.
However, economists consider it to be the appropriate antidote, as it could make the lira more attractive again.
But Erdoğan wants to use cheap credit to boost production and exports, which in turn should create more employment.
jso/Reuters
