Turkish inflation reaches new record highs, with the annual rate hitting 55.18% and a monthly rate of 3.15 percent in February 2023, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute, while an independent group of academics and economists reported on Monday an even higher annual inflation rate of 126.91 percent for the same period.
TurkStat attributed the inability to compile “field prices” in the Gaziantep, Malatya, and Hatay regions to the recent earthquake disaster. The organisation used workplace barcode scanning data and internet price data scraping instead.
The food and non-alcoholic beverages category saw the largest increase of 7.36 percent compared to the previous month. Education came second with 5.69 percent, followed by restaurants and hotels with 4.07 percent. However, clothing prices decreased by 1.76 percent, while alcoholic beverages and tobacco prices dropped by 0.43 percent.
Annual increases in restaurants and hotels were the highest at 74.34 percent, with health expenditures following closely at 70.08 percent in the health category and 69.33 percent in food and non-alcoholic beverages. Retail data in Istanbul also saw a significant increase of 78.62 percent in February compared to the same period in the previous year.
The latest inflation data indicates that Turkey’s economy is still struggling with high inflation levels, an ongoing issue for several years. In 2022, TurkStat reported a year-end inflation rate of 64.27 percent, while ENAG calculated it to be 137.55 percent. In December 2022, the monthly inflation rate was 1.18 percent, with housing seeing the highest increase of 79.83 percent, and food and non-alcoholic beverages at 77.87 percent.
