BREAKING: Govt Sacks Central Bank Governor After Rate Hike

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan sacked Central Bank Governor Naci Agbal on Saturday, two days after the bank hiked interest rates to curb rising inflation and falls in the lira, replacing him with a former ruling party parliamentarian.
The country’s Official Gazette said Erdogan replaced him with Sahap Kavcioglu, a former member of parliament for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party and a critic of Turkey’s high rates.

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan sacked Central Bank Governor Naci Agbal on Saturday, two days after the bank hiked interest rates to curb rising inflation and falls in the lira, replacing him with a former ruling party parliamentarian.

It was the third time Erdogan, who has repeatedly called for low interest rates, has dismissed a central bank chief since July 2019 and is likely to renew pressure on Turkey’s currency when markets reopen.

Agbal, appointed less than five months ago, aggressively raised the main policy interest rate by 875 basis points to 19%, the highest of any big economy, winning praise from analysts who said he had established central bank credibility.

His sacking comes two days after the bank hiked rates by a more-than-expected 200 basis points on Thursday, in what it called a “front-loaded” move to head off further rises in double-digit inflation and a sliding lira.

The country’s Official Gazette said Erdogan replaced him with Sahap Kavcioglu, a former member of parliament for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party and a critic of Turkey’s high rates.

“While interest rates are close to zero in the world, opting for a rate hike for us will not solve economic problems,” he wrote in an article for Yeni Safak newspaper last month, adding that rate hikes will “indirectly cause inflation to rise”.

The Daily Sabah newspaper said Kavcioglu is an economist who served at high-level positions in several banks, including state lenders Halkbank and Vakifbank.

Since Agbal’s appointment on Nov. 7, the lira had rebounded more than 15% from a record low of beyond 8.50 to the U.S. dollar. But even during his brief tenure, the president had publicly stated a preference for lower rates, leaving the central banker little room for manoeuvre.

“Agbal is damned if he hikes and damned if he doesn’t,” Emre Peker, director of the Europe team at Eurasia Group, had said ahead of Thursday’s large rate hike.

(Reuters)