ANKARA - The Turkish Central Bank left its mid-point inflation forecasts for end-2024 and end-2025 unchanged at 38% and 14% respectively, Governor Fatih Karahan said on Thursday, vowing to maintain a tight monetary policy stance.

In a briefing on the bank's latest quarterly inflation report, Karahan said that inflation is projected to fall to 9% by the end of 2026.

Inflation expectations, despite remaining high, are on a downward trend and their convergence with the bank's forecast range was crucial to achieving disinflation, he said.

Domestic demand has been declining since Q2 and the balancing of demand will continue to strengthen as a result of the tight stance, he added.

Turkish annual consumer price inflation fell to 61.78% in July, accelerating what is expected to be a sustained slide.

The bank has aggressively raised rates by 4,150 basis points since June last year but it has kept the policy rate unchanged at 50% since March to allow its monetary tightening to have an impact.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay, Huseyin Hayatsever, Nevzat Devranoglu; Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun;Editing by Daren Butler)