The monetary targets of the economic program prepared by Economy Minister Kemal Dervis had not been determined yet, and inflation should go down in May and June after the monetary program was announced in its entirety, Minibas said. He also noted that the 57 percent annual inflation target for wholesale products could be reached with strong monetary policies. Pay attention to June Istanbul University member Associate Professor Sadi Uzunoglu said the expected April inflation was 14 percent on wholesale products and 9 percent on consumer prices, and inflation was not above the expected levels. Uzunoglu said May inflation would be high but June inflation would be an important indicator for the annual target. It is necessary for monthly inflation to go down to a level as low as 2-3 percent.
Inflation is traditionally low in the summer months.
Wholesale product prices had not been higher than consumer prices for the last few months, but we should not expect this increase to be reflected in customer prices, as wholesale product prices will be above consumer prices this year because producers could not reflect price increases to customers, Uzunoglu said. He added that internal demand regressed because purchasing power went down and producers should move toward foreign markets instead of internal ones. Target will deviate Professor Erol Manisali, evaluating the annual target in comparison with April inflation, claimed that the annual target would be deviated from. Wholesale prices are above consumer prices because there is not much demand. For this reason 2001-year inflation may be 10 percent above the target.