Inflation

The International Monetary Fund has praised Turkey's economic growth performance, while also warning of "signs of overheating," and welcoming a recent interest rate increase in a bid to curb rising inflation.

The Turkish Central Bank's official reserve assets dropped to $110.3 billion in March, the bank announced on April 27. 

Greece's annual EU-harmonised inflation rate slowed in March, statistics service ELSTAT data showed on Friday.

The reading in March was 0.2 percent from 0.4 percent in February. The data also showed the headline consumer price index turned negative at -0.2 percent year-on-year from 0.1 percent in the previous month.

The Central Bank of Turkey may carry out additional monetary tightening "if necessary" as it closely monitors the impact of the latest developments on inflation, pricing behavior and other factors affecting inflation, the bank's Governor Murat Çetinkaya has said.

Federal Reserve officials signaled rising confidence last month that a strong economy will lift inflation closer to its 2 percent target and that they may accelerate the Fed's pace of interest rate hikes as a result.

At the same time, the decision was made to narrow the interest rate corridor from 1.5 to 1.25 percentage points, meaning that the deposit facility rate remains unchanged.

The annual inflation rate went up to 5 percent in March 2018, from 4.7 percent in the previous month, on the grounds of non-food product prices going up by 6.57 percent, those of food products by 4.01 percent, and those of services by 2.9 percent.

A higher annual inflation rate was registered in June 2013, when consumer prices went up 5.37 percent.

A weak Turkish Lira and high import costs have led to increased inflation rate in Turkey, the head of the Turkish Central Bank has said, while also pointing to the potential negative impacts of high consumer prices over pricing behaviors.

Europe's economic recovery is gaining pace, with eurozone unemployment at its lowest level since December 2008 and inflation on the rise, official figures showed on April 4.

Real inflation was last year shielded by tax measures such as the VAT cut, and if we did the numbers excluding the fiscal impact, the inflation rate would not have been that deep in the negative in the first half of 2017, governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) Mugur Isarescu said at the meeting organized by the Senate's Committee on Economy, Industries and Services.