Let’s look at the region now. The Turkish lira sank further as the central bank slashed interest rates for the third consecutive month following pressure to do so from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The bank cut its policy rate from 16 to 15 percent despite rising inflation and a fast-depreciating currency, Turkish Media reports. “As long as I am in this position, I will continue to fight against high interest rates, I will continue to fight against inflation,” - Erdoğan said. The lira has lost 31 percent of its value against the dollar since the start of the year and the annual inflation rate has reached nearly 20 percent.
After staging a recovery during the emergence from the Covid crisis, unemployment in Israel is back on the rise. In the second half of October, unemployment rose to 5.6% from 5.1%, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports. There are currently more than 300 thousand jobless people in Israel compared with about 150,000 on the eve of the Covid crisis, Globes reports. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, although Israel fared better than most member countries during the Covid crisis, it is expected to be among the last in seeing its job market recover.
Production of electric cars is set to be launched in Kazakhstan starting from 2022, First Vice Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development said. In order to develop the production of environmentally friendly vehicles, Kazakhstani automakers have already commenced the production of electric vehicles. The First Vice Minister also stressed that in order to support electric vehicle efforts and create necessary infrastructure, more than 100 charging stations had been installed in the cities of Nur-Sultan, Almaty and Pavlodar.
In January-October this year, more than 28 billion cubic meters of gas were pumped through Azerbaijan’s main gas pipelines, Report informs, citing the State Statistics Committee that this is 20.4% more compared to the corresponding period of 2020. In the total volume of gas pumped through the main gas pipelines, 50.5% came to the share of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline. Over the reporting period, this pipeline transported 14.3 billion cubic meters of gas, which is 46% more than the same period of last year.
