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Southeast Europe
April 26, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 14
Turkish lira subsides further after central bank issues less hawkish rates advice
Akin Nazli in Belgrade
Turkey’s central bank stuck with its benchmark interest rate of 24% on April 25 as anticipated. However, the Turkish lira (TRY) depreciated sharply in the wake of the announcement. It was seen as less hawkish than desired because the rate-setters dropped “monetary policy would be tightened further if it became necessary” along with “contribution of fiscal policy to rebalancing process” in their accompanying statement.
The TRY climbed into the 5.98s against the USD following the announced policy decision.
“Not only do they not tighten, but they soften the language... No other way to say this, but pretty ridiculous move by the CBRT [Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey] — it’s like why on Earth would you do that when you are still in the market's cross wires, you are losing FX reserves and
the lira is un-anchored. It’s like the CBRT has just made mistake, after mistake over the past couple of years,” Timothy Ash of BlueBay Asset Management said in a note to investors.
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Will operation “Broom” sweep pro-western Pendarovski to North Macedonia’s presidency?
As Orthodox Easter approaches, the candidate for North Macedonia’s ruling coalition in the ongoing presidential election, Stevo Pendarovski, says he will pause from campaigning during the holidays. His rival in next weekend’s runoff, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, posted pictures on Facebook of the eggs she had dyed, a tradition for the holiday. But despite their marking of the religious holiday, Pendarovski and Siljanovska-Davkova are locked in a desperate struggle for the votes of the country’s ethnic Albanian minority, who are likely to determine the outcome of the second round.
The two candidates were less than one percentage point apart in the first round of voting on April 21. North Macedonia is now heading to the run-off
whose outcome is completely unpredictable, not least because the low turnout in the first round suggests that the required threshold of 40% may not be reached. In this case, the vote, which is of key importance for the country to advance on its EU path, will be invalidated.
Pendarovski, the pro-western candidate of the governing coalition, supported by 30 smaller political parties, won 42.84% of the votes on April 21. He was barely ahead of Gordana Siljanovska- Davkova, the nominee of the opposition VMRO- DPMNE party, who won 42.24%.
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