The screws have turned on Turkey's credit boom since last May. Consumer loan costs have doubled to 72% and interest on credit cards — which Turks are heavily reliant on — have also soared.
Photographer: Nicole Tung/BloombergErdogan Wins Over Foreign Investors, But Turks Pay the Price
Turkey’s shift in economic policy is luring back money, but households are still reeling from rampant inflation.
It doesn’t take long for a conversation among professionals in Istanbul or Ankara to turn to restaurants and grocery stores. Yet these days, people don’t say much about the food on offer, only prices.
Turkey has endured some of the highest inflation in the world in recent years as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan abandoned economic orthodoxy by pursuing growth at any cost. A little over a year since he cemented his grip on power with another election win, a policy U-turn is now helping lure back some of the foreign investors who fled as the currency, the lira, plummeted.