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Turkey: currency crisis after bank governor sacked

March 24, 2021 at 3:18 pm

Naci Agbal, Turkey’s former finance minister, in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday, July 28, 2016 [Bloomberg/Gettyimages]

The value of the Turkish lira has fallen by 15 per cent after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sacked the governor of the country’s central bank over the weekend. Naci Agbal was dismissed on Saturday.

Agbal was replaced by Sahap Kavcioglu, a banking professor and former parliamentarian for Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

The Turkish lira appears to be in relative free fall, having been hit hard by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The currency rallied briefly to reach 8.04 lira to the US dollar earlier on Wednesday after it plunged to near-record low levels on Monday.

Turkey’s gross domestic product (GDP) at current prices stood at 5.1 trillion Turkish lira ($717.1 billion) last year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute’s latest report.

READ: Turkey’s economy grows 1.8% in 2020