Until recently, Turkey sought to restrict hot money inflows by keeping interest rates down. But that allowed growth to roar and the trade deficit to soar. Now, its huge external deficit — coupled with rising inflation and a lira that has lost a quarter of its value this year — is making Turkey’s unorthodox response to hot money glut look a mistake.
According to the central bank, short-term external debt with a maturity of less than one year amounted to $135.5 billion in August. In addition, Turkey has to finance a deficit on the current account, the broadest measure of trade, that may approach $75 billion, or about 10 percent of its gross domestic product, this year. The central bank’s foreign exchange reserves stand at $85 billion, or enough to cover about five months of imports, which is unusually low. It can ill-afford to intervene in the currency market.
There are some signs it may adopt a more realistic stance. The central bank warned last week that inflation would rise significantly because of the “recent excessive depreciation” of the lira. Yet it only raised the overnight lending rate, to 12.5 percent from 9 percent. That makes it more expensive to speculate against the lira. The key policy interest rate was held at 5.75 percent, below inflation of 6.2 percent.
The central bank hopes for a soft landing as a weak euro zone weighs on exports and growth. And the economy has strengths: undoubted dynamism, low public debt of 40 percent of gross domestic product and a modest fiscal deficit close to 2 percent of G.D.P. But Turkey has let money inflows knock its economy off balance. Higher interest rates seem certain to be needed to shore up the lira and control inflation. Combined with the earthquake, that means Turkey’s landing could be painfully hard.