President Erdoğan appoints three deputy governors to central bank

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan named three deputy governors to the central bank, the country's official gazette said on Friday, a day after the bank vowed to continue gradual monetary tightening and raised its end-2023 inflation forecast.

Osman Cevdet Akçay, Fatih Karahan and Hatice Karahan were appointed as deputy central bank governors, replacing three predecessors, the statement showed.

Fatih Karahan, who held economist positions in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for almost a decade, most recently worked for Amazon as a principal economist, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Akçay is an economist who used to work at Turkish lender Yapı Kredi and Hatice Karahan is an academic and a chief economic adviser to the president.

The lira stood at 26.9560 against the dollar on Friday morning, unchanged from Thursday's closing level. It has lost 30% of its value this year.

The appointments came after the central bank, under new Governor Hafize Gaye Erkan, reversed course and tightened policy in the last two months.

On Thursday, Türkiye's central bank raised its end-2023 inflation forecast sharply to 58% and said it would continue monetary tightening. Annual inflation stood at 38.2% in June.

Since Erkan's appointment, the central bank has hiked its policy rate by 900 basis points to 17.5% in two meetings.

Erdoğan removed the previous deputy governors Emrah Şener, Taha Çakmak and Mustafa Duman, Friday's statement said.