Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed three new deputy governors to the central bank, continuing his revamp of the country’s economic team after his reelection in May.
(Bloomberg) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed three new deputy governors to the central bank, continuing his revamp of the country’s economic team after his reelection in May.
Cevdet Akcay, Hatice Karahan and Fatih Karahan replace Emrah Sener, Taha Cakmak and Mustafa Duman at the Monetary Policy Committee, according to a decision published in the Official Gazette on early Friday.
Erdogan last month appointed former Wall Street banker Hafize Gaye Erkan as the new central bank governor, making her the first female chief of the seven-member MPC.
Erkan on Thursday made her public debut during the central bank’s quarterly inflation report presentation in Ankara. She delivered a much higher inflation forecast for year-end than expected by economists in a move that aims to shore up the institution’s credibility.
Read more: Former First Republic Star Erkan Nabs Top Job Back in Turkey
Since she became governor, Erkan began to reverse the central bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy by launching the first tightening cycle in more than two years.
The bank has raised its key rate by 900 basis points to 17.5% in two policy meetings. That’s still less than what many analysts were expecting and leaves Turkey’s benchmark firmly in negative territory when adjusted for prices.
Erkan pledged to stick with a “gradual” tightening policy on Thursday.
Read more: New Turkish Central Banker Redraws Inflation Path But Not Policy
New Names
Last month, Erdogan also installed Mehmet Simsek, an ex-Merrill Lynch strategist, as his finance minister. Simsek is well-regarded by foreign investors and has said Turkey has no choice but to return to “rational policies”.
The new deputy governors will have the task of helping restore the credibility of an institution in need of rehabilitation in the eyes of the markets after years of unconventional measures championed by Erdogan.
Hatice Karahan is Erdogan’s senior adviser and a professor of economics at Istanbul Medipol University.
Cevdet Akcay previously served as the chief economist of Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi AS for more than a decade. He left in 2018 according to his LinkedIn profile.
Fatih Karahan is a principal economist at Amazon.com Inc, his LinkedIn profile says. He previously worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as an economist and adviser. He holds a doctorate degree in economics from University of Pennsylvania.
(Updates with former roles of new deputy governors from eighth paragraph.)
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