Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated his previous warning that supermarkets must refrain from charging “unreasonably high prices” and has urged local government officials to scrutinise the practices of such businesses to ensure they are staying in line.

“There is a huge difference between the prices of goods sold in supermarkets and street markets. The reason behind those price discrepancies is the middlemen who buy products from producers cheaply but sell them at dear prices to the supermarkets. We must hold those responsible to account and we will do so. We are working on this,” Erdogan said in a speech he delivered in the southeastern province of Gaziantep.

“This is not doing business, this is not free market. Some people manipulate the prices. This is profiteering, this amounts to treason. There is no government in the world that surrenders to a handful of speculators,” Erdogan, a populist leader famous for his strong speechmaking, added.

On the stump
Turkey’s president is essentially already on the stump on behalf of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the local elections scheduled for March 31. With Turkey slipping towards what could be a nasty recession and battling double-digit inflation following last year’s currency crisis, the AKP faces a big battle to at least retain traditional strongholds of the party in the poll.

Erdogan has not, however, elaborated on the measures the government plans to take against those it decides are profiteers. And his remarks did not have a significant impact on retailers’ share prices. Shares in Migros rose 1.8% on January 25 while BIM’s shares were down 0.32%.

The government is struggling to bring annual inflation, standing at 20.3%, under sustainable control.

According to latest official data, food prices increased by 1.08% m/m in December, bringing annual inflation for this item to 25%.

On a monthly basis, fruit and vegetable prices rose by 5.87% in December, whereas the annual increase was 30.8%.

There has been conjecture that the official data might be subject to some warping but officials at statistics body TUIK have denied that that could be the case.

Last October, finance minister Berat Albayrak, who is also Erdogan’s son-in-law, declared his “All-Out War on Inflation Programme”. Its main call was for private sector firms to join a voluntary campaign to reduce the price of goods by 10% until the end of the year.