Searcher
Seda Guler Mert
Seda Guler Mert
BBVA Research - Chief Economist

Seda Guler Mert is the Chief Economist of Turkey at BBVA Research. She leads a team of economists having expertise on the macroeconomic analysis of the Turkish Economy, specific issues on the Turkish financial system, political and geopolitical analysis of the country, and quantitative analysis and economic modeling. The team conducts a new line of research on Big Data and Applied Economic Analysis in order to improve macroeconomic forecasting and real-time analysis of the economy in high definition.

She made a major degree in Economics and a minor degree in Mathematics at Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara. She also made her Master’s degree in Financial Engineering at Bogazici University, Istanbul. She has taken different courses and received certificates on “Macroeconomic Analysis and Forecasting”, “Macroeconomic Challenges of Global Imbalances” and “Financial Programming and Policies” from IIF, LSE, and IMF, respectively.

Latest publications

Consumer prices rose by 4.53% in Feb, higher than our exp. and cons. (4.0% both), and annual inflation accelerated to 67.07% (64.86% prev.). Given the strong realizations in Jan. and Feb, we expect tighter financial conditions to be pursued in post-election period and maintain our 2024 year-end inflation expectation of 45%.
The Central Bank (CBRT) maintained the policy rate at 45% as expected. We maintain our call of keeping 45% policy rate throughout the year with a bias tilted to the upside.
In the first inflation report of the year, the Central Bank (CBRT) maintained their interim inflation targets (36% by end 2024 and 14% by end 2025). We expect the policy rate at 45% throughout the year although the possibility of a rate hike above 45% remains.