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corresponding figure for other regular large supermarkets was 5% to 12%.
As inflation rocketed amid Turkey's economic woes, officials regularly sounded warnings to shops not to exploit the situation by over-pricing, and in some areas even set up state-run fruit and vegetable stalls with prices that were guaranteed as low. Some critics dismissed the move as a pre-election ploy in advance of the March local elections. In those elections, the ruling AKP party did particularly badly in the cities as Turks protested about the state of the economy.
Turkish households’ consumption increased 1.5% on an annual basis in the third quarter of 2019 after contracting in the previous three quarters, according to the latest GDP data. Households’ spending plunged nearly 8% y/y in Q4 of 2018 following the currency crisis, while the contraction was 4.9% y/y in Q1 and 1% y/y in Q2 last year.
2.11 Business and consumer confidence surveys
2.12 Politics - shorts
IIF Green Weekly Insight: The Roaring Twenties .
Hackers working for Turkish state ‘thought to be behind sweeping cyberattacks on governments and other organisations’ . The hackers have attacked at least 30 organisations, including government ministries, embassies and security services as well as companies and other groups, according to a Reuters review of public internet records. Victims have included Cypriot and Greek government email services and the Iraqi government’s national security advisor, the records show, the news agency reported on January 27.
A magnitude-6.8 earthquake in Turkey’s eastern Elazig province on January 24 killed at least 38 people and injured at least 1,600 . Turkey is situated in a seismically active area and sits on two major fault lines. It is one of a number of countries, including China and Iran, that can experience catastrophic earthquakes, according to the US Geological Survey.
Turkey’s top Islamic authority is challenging 1,400 years of religious thinking , with a new ruling on the fraught topic of usury . The country’s High Board of Religious Affairs has reportedly decided that interest on home loans doesn’t violate Islam’s proscriptions against usury as long as the loan
18 TURKEY Country Report OUTLOOK 2020 www.intellinews.com