Turkey’s Erdogan expects more interest rate cuts in 2025

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan stands before a picture of the founder and first president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, during his meeting with the visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Ankara Esenboga Airport on December 12, 2024. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/Pool via REUTERS

ANKARA — Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that there would be more interest rate cuts in 2025 after the central bank cut its key rate by 250 basis points to 47.5% this week.

The Turkish central bank trimmed the one-week repo rate (TRINT=ECI) after an 18-month tightening effort that reversed years of unorthodox economic policies and easy money championed by Erdogan, who has since changed tack to back the program.

READ: Turkey’s central bank lowers key interest rate to 47.5%

“Priority in our economy program is to lower the inflation… We will hopefully reduce inflation to the required level by using other tools at our disposal in addition to the monetary policy,” Erdogan told members of his AK Party (AKP) in northwestern city of Bursa.

“We will definitely start lowering the interest rates. 2025 will be the landmark year for this,” he said.

“Interest rates will decrease so that inflation will decrease. We will take this step. This is now indispensable for us.”

Erdogan, who once described interest rates as his “biggest enemy,” said last month that inflation would fall alongside the interest rate.

The central bank earlier announced that it had reduced the number of scheduled policy meetings next year to eight from 12 in 2024.

According to a Reuters poll’s median, the central bank is expected to ease rates to about 28.5% by the end of 2025, with forecasts ranging between 25% and 33%.