Turkey aims to cap annual increases in home rentals at 25% as a surge in inflation pressures the government a year ahead of scheduled elections, Bloomberg News reported. Anger is deepening over soaring rents, which online marketplace sahibinden.com said rose an average 147% in Istanbul for new tenants who signed deals in May. Landlords are attempting to evict occupants and sign up new ones at much higher prices, with the number of lawsuits launched against tenants doubling, Sozcu newspaper reported in April.

The Turkish lira plunged the most since a rout late last year, as a steep drawdown in the central bank’s reserves and its unorthodox monetary policy left the currency increasingly exposed amid a standoff with the country’s NATO allies, Bloomberg News reported. Already the worst performer in emerging markets this year, the lira on Tuesday is on track for the world’s biggest decline against the dollar, slipping as much as 1.5% to the weakest level in five months. Little relief is in sight, especially as energy costs spiral higher for Turkey.

Turkey’s gross foreign-currency reserves fell the most this year, providing further evidence that an effort to support the lira is coming at an increasingly steep cost, Bloomberg News reported. The stockpile shrank by $4.8 billion in the seven days ended May 13, according to central bank figures published on Friday. That brought total holdings, which exclude gold reserves, to a 10-month low of $61.2 billion.

Turkey's annual inflation jumped to a two-decade high of 69.97% in April, according to data on Thursday, fuelled by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and rising energy and commodity prices after last year's lira crash, Reuters reported. The surge in prices has badly strained households just over a year before presidential and parliamentary elections that could bring the curtain down on President Tayyip Erdogan's long rule.

The Turkish lira was on Thursday unmoved by the central bank's decision to hold its policy rate at 14%, while Russia's rouble slipped ahead of planned easing in capital controls next week, Reuters reported. The lira was down 0.2% at 14.61 a dollar after the widely expected central bank move, which came even as annual inflation was estimated to rise beyond the current 61%. The increase in price pressures has been driven by rising energy costs and supply shocks, but inflation should start to ease due to the central bank's actions, it said.

A company accused by German authorities of supplying authoritarian countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Myanmar with trojan software that could be used to eavesdrop on dissidents has shut down operations and filed for insolvency, the Bloomberg reported. FinFisher GmbH sold spyware to law enforcement and intelligence agencies that allows users to access address books, chat messages, photographs and videos on targeted smartphones as well as listen in on telephone conversations.

After losing two years to the COVID-19 pandemic, shopkeepers in the heart of the Turkish Riviera had hoped for a strong tourism season this year to help keep their businesses afloat. But Russia’s war in Ukraine is fast dampening their spirits, the Associated Press reported. “We’re trying to earn our bread through tourism, but it looks like the war has finished off this (tourism) season, too,” Devrim Akcay said outside his clothing shop in the resort town of Belek, along the Mediterranean coast’s Antalya province.

Textile and leather goods' makers in Istanbul's garment district are feeling the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine as customers in Moscow and Kyiv have canceled $200 million in orders in the past week, industry officials say, Reuters reported. The loss of trade adds to strains on Turkey's economy, with officials estimating that more than $1 billion is directly at risk to the textile industry alone if the conflict in Ukraine continues.

Turkey’s central bank left its key interest rate unchanged for a second consecutive month, pausing the government’s policy of interest-rate cuts that triggered a chaotic slide in the value of the lira last year, the Wall Street Journal reported. The bank’s monetary policy committee said Thursday it left the benchmark interest rate on hold at 14%, in line with market expectations. In a statement, the bank cited “increasing geopolitical risks” in a possible reference to the crisis over nearby Ukraine.

A possible Russian invasion of Ukraine is threatening to deepen a continuing economic crisis in nearby Turkey, which faces the prospect of soaring energy prices and disrupted trade with its two Black Sea neighbors in the event of war, the Wall Street Journal reported. Turkey’s economy has already been shaken by inflation that is among the highest in the world, after a series of unorthodox economic steps and a collapse of the currency’s value over the past year. Turkey is dependent on imported Russian oil and natural gas, as well as tourists from both countries.