Turkey's annual inflation rate fell less than expected to 48.6% in October as officials sought to curb rapidly rising consumer prices.
Inflation slowed to 49.4% in September, which was also less than expected.
Turkey's central bank began raising interest rates last year to combat rising prices after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan abandoned his opposition to orthodox monetary policy.
In September, the central bank kept its key interest rate steady at 50% for the sixth consecutive month.
"The smaller-than-expected decline in Turkish inflation in October ... is likely to dash any remaining hopes that the monetary easing cycle will begin this year," said Nicholas Farr, an economist at research firm Capital Economics.
"The risks now look more towards a rate cut even later than our current forecast for the first quarter of next year," he told AFP.
Consumer prices rose by 2.9% month-on-month in October, according to data from the TUIK statistics office. | BGNES
