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Goldman Sees Turkey Raising Main Interest Rate to Calm Markets

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Turkey will probably raise its main interest rate by mid-April, following a week of political and market turmoil sparked by the detention of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest rival.

The central bank may increase its one-week repo rate by 350 basis points from 42.5%, Goldman analysts Clemens Grafe and Basak Edizgil said in a note to clients on Thursday. It’s likely to make the move on or before April 17, when the next monetary policy meeting is scheduled, they said.

The Wall Street lender said ongoing protests and the upcoming Eid holiday are likely to lead to renewed demand for foreign exchange. It cited the risk of a “redollarization of the domestic deposit base.”

They added that predicting the size of the central bank’s hike is “difficult.”

Goldman’s call is more hawkish than that of most other analysts so far. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley both said the central bank would probably pause an easing cycle at its next meeting, but would hold rates rather than raise them.

Turkish assets plunged last week after police detained Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and who was seen as a likely presidential candidate at the next election. There were mass demonstrations in cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, while state banks sold billions of dollars to stem a rout in the lira.

The central bank’s interventions in the last three days of the past week totaled almost $27 billion, according to Bloomberg Economics’ calculations. The monetary authority also raised its overnight lending rate at an unscheduled meeting on Thursday.

“We think that the choice of the lending rate was driven by a combination of the bank expecting the selling pressure to abide quickly and by the need of further discussions before raising its main policy rate,” the Goldman analysts said.

They added that Erdogan’s backing of his economic and financial officials this week was a signal he’d accept a rate increase. In the past, he has championed ultra-loose policy and said it’s the best way to both boost growth and tame inflation, which stands at 39% in Turkey.