Turkey's Central Bank Keeps Interest Rates Unchanged

ANKARA - For the first time since October 2008, Turkish Central Bank kept its interest rates unchanged, overnight borrowing rate at 6.5 percent and lending rate at 9 percent.

The bank's Monetary Policy Board said in a statement on Thursday that it would be necessary to keep interest rates at low levels for a long time as the global financial downturn has not yet settled and uncertainty over the pace of recovery is still going on.

Turkey has slashed nearly 10 percentage points from the interest rate over the past 13 consecutive months.

"Recent data releases indicate a moderate pace of recovery in the economic activity. However, there are still uncertainties regarding the aggregate demand, and the employment conditions are expected to take a long time to fully recover," the statement said.

"Therefore, resource utilization, hence inflation, is expected to stay around low levels in the medium term," it added.