Turkey takes action in bid to curb currency crisis

IANS  |  Ankara 

The Central of (TCMB) on Monday announced it will provide all required liquidity to ensure financial stability after the collapse of the against the US dollar. The crisis has rattled markets around the world.

The TCMB explained in a press release on its official website that it was set to reduce the limits of foreign exchange reserves allowed to Turkish banks in order to withdraw liras from the market, provide liquidity and stabilize the value of the Turkish currency.

"In the framework of intraday and overnight standing facilities, the Central will provide all the liquidity the banks need," the said.

It pointed out that the "discount rates for collaterals against transactions will be revised based on type and maturity."

Before the bank's announcement the lira was down 9 per cent before recovering slightly to be 6 per cent lower in late morning trading in

On Monday, benchmark stock indexes in Tokyo, Hong Kong and were all down more than 1.5 per cent in late morning trading. The Composite later recovered from a fall of 1.7 per cent to trade with much smaller falls in afternoon trading.

In early trading in Europe, index was down 0.5 per cent, while the German and French share markets were down by similar amounts.

said it was taking legal action against 346 accounts it claimed had posted comments about the weakening lira "in a provocative way".

The central bank said it expected that the discounted value of "banks' current unencumbered collaterals" will increase to about 3.8 billion Turkish liras ($564 million).

On the other hand, the country's announced that it will limit the transactions of Turkish banks with foreign investors to 50 per cent of the capital, and that the rate will be calculated on a daily basis.

Turkish said that the government was set to unveil an action plan later on Monday to stop the fall of the Turkish currency.

According to analysts, the collapse of the was, in part, attributed to diplomatic tensions with the US.

The currency slide worsened on Friday, when US approved the doubling of tariffs on Turkish and aluminium, following Ankara's refusal to free an American pastor who has been in detention in for nearly two years.

Turkish vowed not to allow to be "brought to its knees" and spoke of a plot against his country.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Mon, August 13 2018. 14:52 IST