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Turkey’s president launches a plan to shore up his plummeting currency
土耳其总统推出一项计划,以支撑其暴跌的货币
When recep tayyip erdogan speaks, the Turkish lira generally listens, shudders, and falls off a cliff. For once, something different happened. Facing a crisis of his own making, Turkey’s leader took a dramatic step to save the lira on December 20th, moments after the currency had plummeted to a new record low. The government, he announced, would guarantee bank deposits in lira, protecting them from swings in the exchange rate. The lira rebounded spectacularly on the news, moving from 18.36 to as low as 11.11 against the dollar, its biggest rally for nearly four decades.
当雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安讲话时,土耳其里拉通常会倾听,强烈震动,然后暴跌。这一次,不同的事情发生了。面对由他自己造成的危机,土耳其领导人在12月20日采取了戏剧性的措施来拯救里拉,而就在此之前,里拉刚刚跌至历史新低。他宣布,政府将以里拉为银行存款提供担保,保护它们免受汇率波动的影响。受此消息影响,里拉大幅反弹,从18.36里拉兑1美元跌至11.11里拉兑1美元,创下近40年来最大涨幅。
Under the new plan, the Turkish government will compensate holders of lira deposits whenever the currency’s depreciation tops the interest rate offered by their banks. For example, were the lira to slide by 30% against the dollar in a single year, an account holder at a bank with a 14% deposit rate would pocket the difference, courtesy of Turkey’s treasury.
根据这项新计划,一旦里拉贬值幅度超过银行提供的利率,土耳其政府将向里拉存款持有人提供补偿。例如,如果里拉在一年内对美元贬值30%的话,存款利率为14%的银行账户持有人就可以将差额收入囊中,该差额由土耳其财政部提供。
Turkey’s economy is not close to being out of the woods. But at the very least, Mr Erdogan’s stopgap solution has, for now, reassured investors that Turkey’s leader is aware of the need to rescue the lira. The scheme may have also prevented a run on the banks. Turks have been converting their savings to dollars at a record pace over the past month. Lately, some of them had begun considering withdrawing their savings altogether. “People had begun to lose trust in the banking system,” says Ozlem Derici Sengul, founding partner at Spinn Consulting in Istanbul. “The decision stopped this.”
土耳其的经济距离摆脱困境还很远。但至少,埃尔多安的权宜之计暂时让投资者相信,土耳其领导人意识到了拯救里拉的必要性。该计划可能还阻止了对银行的挤兑。过去一个月,土耳其人一直在以创纪录的速度将他们的储蓄兑换成美元。最近,他们中的一些人开始考虑把存款全部取出来。伊斯坦布尔Spinn 咨询公司的创始合伙人奥兹勒姆·德里奇·森居尔表示:“人们已开始对银行体系失去信任,埃尔多安的这个决定阻止了这一切。”