A new turn in Turkey-Russia relations
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek, along with Turkish Minister of Economy Nihat Zeykekci and other officials, paid a visit to Russia last week to discuss Russian restrictions on Turkish citizens, companies and products.
Turkish delegates met with Russian PM Arkady Dvorkovich in Moscow, who recently said that trade restrictions were hurting the economies of both countries and should be removed.
While it is hard to pinpoint any definitive progress achieved from last week’s meetings, both parties made relatively positive statements after the meeting. It can be assumed that further meetings between both countries will be increasing in the coming weeks.
However, the most important announcement made was regarding the upcoming visit on May 3 of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Russia’s southern city Sochi where he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
While it seems that the main topic of discussion will be Syria, it is anticipated that other issues including trade restrictions, as well as Turkey’s wish to buy Russian air missile defense system, S-400, will also feature in discussions at this top level.
Nabiullina signals rate cut
The head of Russian Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina announced last week that a rate cut of 25 or 50 base points was possible during this week’s meeting of the bank.
Nabiullina pointed out that the decrease in inflation to a yearly level of 4.1 percent created enough space for the bank to cut the interest rates even further.
The target inflation of the bank for the end of 2017 was set at 4 percent. Since it looks like this target will be reached sooner than expected, the bank cut its rates from 10 percent to 9.75 percent after its last meeting in March.