Turkey’s central bank stepped in again this week to clear confusion over the effects of its unorthodox monetary policy, after the release of data that appeared to contradict comments made by officials. The trouble was caused by balance of payments data: it showed portfolio inflows of $2.3bn in January, higher than a year earlier and at odds with official claims that some $10bn of “hot money” had left the country since December, when the central bank began “quantitative tightening” to deal with macroeconomic imbalances.

Two clarifications from the central bank have cleared up the discrepancy. The balance of payments data showed foreign investors had sold out of Turkish equities since November, while increasing their exposure to debt instruments. But the figures did not include money market transactions, mainly in the form of swap operations. Here, the central bank said, there had indeed been an outflow of $11.5bn since November. Read more