Turkey’s annual consumer inflation slowed for the first time since April as increases in food moderated, Bloomberg reported. The inflation rate dropped to 8.05% in August from 8.79% a month earlier, below the median estimate of 8.4% in a Bloomberg survey. Food prices rose an annual 6.19% through August, compared with 9.69% a month earlier, the state statistics office said in a statement on Monday. An index of core inflation that excludes volatile items such as food prices slowed to 8.41% from 8.7% in July. After delivering its sixth interest rate cut in as many months in August, the Turkish central bank said the core gauge would gradually slow, and that it was seeing signs of a possible slowdown in raw food prices. The lira was little changed after the inflation data, trading 0.2% higher at 2.94 per dollar in Istanbul.
