ISTANBUL: Turkish annual inflation is seen slowing to 44% in April, just before landmark elections in which living costs have hurt President Tayyip Erdogan’s prospects, and it is expected to end the year at 46.5% according to a Reuters poll on Friday.

Inflation has been stoked by a late-2021 currency crisis and it touched a 24-year peak of 85.51% in October.

It fell sharply in December and eased to 50.51% by March with a favourable base effect and relatively stable lira.

The median estimate for April annual inflation was 44%, based on 14 economists polled by Reuters. Forecasts ranged between 42.44% and 45.4%.

On a monthly basis the median estimate was 2.6%, in a range of 2.1% to 3.6%, mainly due to higher prices of food and services, economists said.

Erdogan has urged monetary stimulus over the last several years, aiming to achieve price stability by slashing borrowing costs, boosting exports and flipping chronic current account deficits to surpluses.

Yet the unorthodox policy stoked inflation, which has damaged his popularity ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14.

Turkey’s southeast was hit by massive earthquakes in February which killed more than 50,000 people and left millions homeless. Recovery is expected to cost more than $100 billion and shave one to two percentage points off growth this year.

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The central bank held its policy rate steady at 8.5% on Thursday after earlier easing to support growth and employment in the wake of the disaster.

It said the policy would support quake recovery, even as the monetary stimulus in the last two years has stoked prices and left real yields deeply negative.

The median estimate for inflation at year-end stood at 46.5% in the Reuters poll, unchanged from one conducted in March, with forecasts coming in between 34% and 55%.

The Turkish Statistical Institute will announce April inflation data at 0700 GMT on May 3.