Households are struggling to make ends meet in Turkey, where, according to official statistics, consumer price inflation hit 21.31% in November, its biggest gain in three years. Faced, for the first time in nineteen years, with a drastic erosion of their purchasing power, most Turkish households are trying to cope with the new reality. And this, while the currency continues to fall, the Turkish lira having lost 45% against the dollar in November, unprecedented, forcing the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to intervene. Monday, December 20, the Head of State took the markets and his opposition by surprise by deciding to tie the value of certain bank deposits in pounds to the dollar. The Turkish lira then recovered sharply on Monday (+ 34%), was still gaining 3.5% on Tuesday, December 21.
In this crisis, modest households are the most affected. Every morning long queues form along municipal kiosks, which sell bread for less than in bakeries and stores.
“I haven’t eaten meat for a long time”, summarizes Abdullah, a father who is patient to buy eight loaves of bread at a reduced price in the district of Fatih, on the European side of Istanbul. “Feeding my family has become a real headache”, explains Ayse Yildirim, a stay-at-home mother met at a fruit and vegetable seller in the same neighborhood. Her husband’s salary (3,600 Turkish pounds, or about 236 euros), employed in a shipping company, is no longer enough to boil the pot for the couple and their two children.
“We tighten our belts”
The fall of the Turkish lira favors the rise in prices due to the increase in the cost of imports (energy, fertilizers, intermediate products). “Food prices have skyrocketed. Tomatoes are unaffordable, as are flour, oil, sugar, and eggs. Not to mention gas and electricity ”, deplores Ayse Yildirim, obliged to “Juggling to pay the bills”. “We tighten our belts, but for how long? “, she asks herself.
Indispensable for the preparation of classic dishes – pilaf (dish of wheat or sautéed rice), salads, soups – sunflower oil has increased by 137.59% this year, according to calculations by the planning committee of the municipality of ‘Istanbul. Its experts assure that consumer price inflation is much higher than the figure announced by the Islamo-conservative government.
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