Turkey will announce a new scheme on the weekend to encourage households to convert their gold holdings into liras, finance minister Nureddin Nebati told investors in London on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Two investors who attended meetings with Nebati in London said the minister had told them about the plans to ensure part of the $250-$350 billion worth of gold held by Turkish households would find its way into the domestic saving system. "They will make announcements this weekend on how to convince people to let go of their gold holdings – it is a huge amount in Turkey," said on investor.

Turkey is preparing to return to global bond markets for the first time since the lira’s implosion, Bloomberg News reported. The nation has picked banks including HSBC Holdings Plc to manage a sale of Islamic debt, known as a sukuk, which could happen this month. The sale may be used to refinance about $2 billion of debt maturing this month. The last time Turkey turned to foreign investors with a bond sale was in September, before President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s insistence on cutting interest rates despite high inflation sent the currency into a tailspin.

A real rate of minus 35% and little prospect of a rate hike by the Turkish central bank can only mean more losses for the beleaguered lira, Bloomberg News reported. Traders see a probability of almost 50% that the lira will surpass its record low of 18.3633 per dollar by the end of the year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on prices of put and call options. The currency slumped as much as 1.2% Thursday before paring its drop to trade at 13.5772 as of 2:08 p.m. in Istanbul.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised the country would continuing cutting interest rates, suggesting that lower inflation will follow, Bloomberg News reported. “We will lower interest rates as we have done already,” said Erdogan, after the Turkish central bank halted a rate-cut cycle this month that trimmed 500 basis points from the benchmark rate since September. The aggressive easing cycle was accompanied by runaway inflation, which has caused an outcry among Turks who’ve witnessed a deep erosion of their purchasing power in a few months.

Turkish Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati told economists he expects the inflation rate to peak at about 40% in the months ahead and not to surpass 50% this year, Bloomberg News reported. Nebati provided his most detailed outlook yet for consumer prices in 2022 during a meeting with 60 economists and analysts on Saturday in Istanbul. The minister said the inflation rate may not fall below 30% until the end of the year. Turkey’s inflation rate hit 36.1% in December, the highest since the beginning of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 19-year rule.

Some Turkish manufacturing companies have halted production temporarily after Iran cut gas flows last week for up to 10 days due to a technical problem, Reuters reported. Companies affected include car parts maker Ege Endustri , cardboard manufacturer Kartonsan and defence and automotive parts maker Katmerciler. Turkey is almost fully dependent on imported gas from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, which suspended gas flows to the country last Thursday, saying there was a technical fault at a pressure-boosting station in Turkey.

Turkey’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday, pausing a cycle of rate cuts and launching an “open-ended” policy review after inflation surged to its highest level since the beginning of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 19-year rule, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee, led by Governor Sahap Kavcioglu, held its one-week repo rate at 14% as forecast by all 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, in its first meeting since inflation hit a record 36.1%.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to meet Thursday with the leader of El Salvador, the first country to make bitcoin legal tender, while the Turkish central bank kept interest rates on hold in a move that will likely do little to arrest the country’s currency crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported. With El Salvador planning to launch a $1 billion bitcoin-backed bond, Turks and foreign investors are watching closely to see if the meeting between Mr.

The United Arab Emirates and Turkey agreed to a currency swap equivalent to nearly $5 billion that reinforces an economic partnership between two Middle Eastern rivals and provides Ankara with a badly needed infusion of foreign funds, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal, announced Wednesday, deepens the detente between Turkey and the U.A.E., powers that until recently were on opposite sides of a Middle Eastern cold war and remain at odds over conflicts in the region.

The Turkish lira has become so volatile that Turks have ditched the local currency for assets with an even riskier reputation: cryptocurrencies, the Wall Street Journal reported. While the lira unraveled against the dollar in the last quarter of 2021, cryptocurrency trading volumes using the lira leapt to an average $1.8 billion a day across three exchanges, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.