Prices in Turkey are surging. But by how much?

EARLIER THISTUIKTUIK summer Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced that he had asked his central-bank governor, the fourth he has appointed in two years, to begin slashing interest rates. Mr Erdogan even provided a date for the start of the easing cycle. “We need to see July, August for interest rates to start coming down,” he said. He may have to wait much longer. A week ahead of the bank’s monetary-policy meeting on July 14th, the country’s statistical authority () revealed that inflation had swollen to 17.5% in June, beating even the most pessimistic forecasts. That is more than three times the central bank’s inflation target of 5%, and close to the benchmark lending rate, 19%. In the event, the bank had no choice but to keep rates unchanged. It will almost certainly do the same in August.Many Turks are convinced that the situation is even worse than the data suggest. According to a recent poll, a whopping 83% believe the true inflation rate is higher than the official one. The Inflation Research Group, an independent group of academics, believes it to be in the region of 40%. The group’s own index relies on price data gathered from online retailers and updated several times a day, says Veysel Ulusoy, the academic heading the project. Its basket of goods overlaps largely with ’s, but excludes items like alcohol, education and health, where the government is able to control prices. Mr Ulusoy insists his price index is more consistent with consumer and market sentiment.