Turkey appoints Fatih Karahan as new central bank chief after Erkan resigns
Al Jazeera
The appointment comes a few hours after the resignation of Hafize Gaye Erkan citing a media scandal.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has named the central bank’s Deputy Governor Fatih Karahan as its new head following the resignation of the chief, Hafize Gaye Erkan.
The appointment of the former senior economist at the US online retail giant Amazon was announced in the Official Gazette early on Saturday, hours after Erkan said she was stepping down partly due to the need to protect her family amid a media scandal.
Cabinet leaders quickly said the economic programme that had begun cooling inflation expectations after a years-long cost-of-living crisis would carry on under Karahan, who is seen as having played a key role in engineering the monetary tightening.
The first woman to lead the bank, Erkan began raising interest rates when she was appointed in June last year, launching a 180-degree pivot away from years of low rates under Erdogan that had sent inflation soaring and foreign investors fleeing.
Since then, the central bank has hiked its key rate to 45 percent from 8.5 percent. Last week, after another 250-basis-point rise, it said it had tightened enough to achieve disinflation, signalling a halt.
