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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeated his call for the country’s central bank to continue cutting its main interest rate to single-digits until year end. 

“The interest rate will be cut to single digits,” he said in a speech in the Malatya province of Turkey on Saturday. “We will save our investors, citizens from oppression of interest rates.”

Turkey’s central bank has just lowered its benchmark interest rate for the third time in a row and by a bigger magnitude than forecast, signaling it’s close to ending a series of cuts that have pushed an ultra-loose monetary policy to new extremes.

Led by Governor Sahap Kavcioglu, the Monetary Policy Committee reduced its one-week repo rate from 12% to 10.5%. In September, Erdogan called for the main interest rate to fall below 10% by the end of the year -- all this despite Turkey’s inflation standing at 83.45% as of September, the highest in 24 years. 

TURKEY REACT: March to Single-Digit Interest Rates Accelerates

Erdogan has been a vocal champion of low borrowing costs, advocating a theory that cutting rates results in lower inflation. “We will slow down inflation as of next year as we lowered interest rates,” the president said. 

What Erdogan’s Unusual Economic Ideas Mean for Turkey: QuickTake

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