Turkey to hold second unscheduled economy board meeting in a week 'to discuss lira weakness'

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım will convene top economy officials to discuss lira weakness for the second time in five days on Nov. 22, sources in his office said, as pressure grew for the Central Bank to hike rates to support the currency.

The lira has lost around 14 percent of its value against the dollar this year, hitting a record low of 3.4080 on Friday, prompting a meeting of the government's economic coordination committee.

After its last meeting on Friday, sources in Yıldırım's office said the central bank had agreed it would "take the necessary steps" to ensure price stability.

The committee will meet again at 10:30 GMT on Nov. 22 to discuss the currency weakness and recent economic developments, the sources said on Nov. 21.

The announcement gave a small boost to the lira, which briefly firmed to 3.3674 against the dollar from 3.3815 beforehand. At 1043 GMT, the lira had slipped back to 3.3735.

Sentiment towards the currency was boosted by the perception that the government was taking the lira weakness seriously.

"The foreign exchange rate is a barometer at least as important as interest rates, inflation and wages," Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Şimşek, who is on the committee, wrote on Twitter on Nov. 21.

A Reuters poll on Nov. 18 showed economists are divided on whether the Central Bank will hike its main interest rate for the first time in almost three years this week. Six of 13 institutions in the poll expect the bank to hike its main one-week repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.75 percent on Nov. 24.

That would be the first hike since the end of January 2014, when the bank met in emergency session and raised its main interest rate to 10 percent to stem sharp lira falls. The...