ANKARA - Turkish Central Bank Governor Durmus Yilmaz said on Wednesday that inflation targets for 2007 and 2008, which were earlier announced as 4 percent, would remain.
He said the target for 2009 was determined as 4 percent.
In a news conference to set out next year`s monetary policy, Yilmaz stressed the importance of the government keeping public sector wage rises in line with inflation in order to reach these targets.
"The Turkish central bank is monitoring public sector expenditures carefully," he said. The large public sector makes it necessary to watch public policies closely, Yilmaz said, urging stronger fiscal discipline.
Yilmaz said the inflation target range would remain two percentage points either side of the main target in 2007. The bank set 2007 targets of 9.2 percent in March, 6.7 percent in June, 5.3 percent in September and 4 percent in December.
Yilmaz also said Turkey`s floating exchange rate policy would remain in place and that the central bank did not have any target for the exchange rate. Yilmaz said Turkey`s gaping current account deficit had to stabilise at some level. The current account deficit was almost three times as high as a year earlier in October and surpassed 28 billion USD in the first 10 months of the year.