Nov 9, 2020 - Economy & Business

Turkish finance minister resigns on Instagram

A screenshot of Turkish finance and treasury minister's Instagram page.

A screenshot of Turkish finance and treasury minister's Instagram page.

Turkey's minister of finance and treasury, who is also President Erdoğan's son-in-law, announced in an Instagram post that he is stepping down from both roles to spend more time with his family.

Why it matters: Read that sentence again.

The big picture: Erdoğan also fired his handpicked central bank chief over the weekend amid a currency crisis that has seen inflation skyrocket and the value of the lira sink by 30% against the dollar so far this year.

  • The lira strengthened in response to news about the Cabinet reshuffling.

Background: Neither former Finance and Treasury Minister Berat Albayrak nor former central bank Governor Murat Uysal ever held serious credibility in the eyes of U.S. asset managers.

  • Albayrak presided over a closed-door meeting with investors at the 2019 IMF-World Bank meetings that multiple sources who attended told me was the worst they've ever had with a high-ranking government official. One even described the meeting as "an absolute shit show."
  • Uysal was seen as an extension of Erdoğan, and his replacement, former Finance Minister Naci Agbal, has no experience in monetary policy but is at least "regarded as a market-friendly technocrat," Brown Brothers Harriman global head of currency strategy Win Thin said in a note to clients.

Go deeper: Turkish lira's crash shows the value of central bank confidence

Go deeper