International credit rating agency Moody’s has lowered Turkey’s growth forecast for 2018 from 4 percent to 2.5 percent on the grounds of increasing oil prices and loss of value in the Turkish Lira. The rating agency has emphasized that this was influenced by the statements made by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regarding monetary policies and measures which he will take after presidential and parliamentary elections taking place on 24 June. The decision to lower Turkeys growth forecast, which hit 7.4 percent last year, came after Standard & Poors and Fitch downgraded Turkish sovereign debt rate for similar reasons. Earlier in May, S & P cut the countrys foreign currency sovereign credit rating to BB-/B from BB/B but with a stable outlook. "We are downgrading Turkey because of what we view as increasing macroeconomic imbalances," the agency said in a statement. Also, the central bank raised its 2018 inflation forecast to 8.4 percent from 7.9 percent, with the year-end inflation forecast for 2019 remained unchanged at 6.5 percent.