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Banks’ Decision on Mir Shows Erdogan’s Loyalties Still Lie With the West

TURKEY
  • Bloomberg report that Turkish state banks are planning to withdraw from Russia’s Mir payments system in order to stay onside with the US Treasury’s sanctions pressure. The decision had been seen as emblematic of Erdogan’s attempts to straddle both sides of the Ukraine conflict, but this move would suggest Ankara is still leaning slightly more toward the West.
  • The government have launched and up-sized their social assistance package, adding TRY 25bln to the pre-existing budget of TRY 15bln, according to Dunya.
  • The Turk-Is labour confederation see food inflation rising at a clip of 5.15% on the month and 130% Y/Y, stating that the CBRT have been unable to anchor inflation expectations.
  • The EBRD have revised their growth forecast for Turkey and now see growth of 4.5% for this year, up from 2.0% previously. They warn that a widening current account deficit, however, remains a significant concern for reserves.
  • In a bid to stem the volatility in certain Turkish equity markets, Dunya report that meetings between regulators, brokers and officials last week has prompted the decision to allow brokers to hold assume their forward positions in the spot market, and then cannot sell these shares. The change follows acute volatility in banking names, who’d seen traders take large leveraged positions over the past few months.

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