The phenomenon comes a day after a historic 15% depreciation of the Turkish currency caused a chaos of prices and street protests in Ankara and Istanbul, reports Reuters, quoted by Agerpres.
The lira continued its depreciation to a new all-time low on Wednesday but partially recovered its losses by mid-day, strengthening by about 7%.
Thus, the Turkish currency appreciated to a parity of 11.6 units for one dollar, to then decrease to 12.07 units.
With this parity, the pound is 38% weaker than at the end of last year, Reuters notes.
The depreciation has generated significant discounts on pound products compared to prices in other countries, and traders are having trouble updating rates amid the chaos in the foreign exchange market.
Specifically, local prices for phones and computers are about 10% lower than in the US.
Under these conditions, Apple's website for Turkey stopped sales for most products, displaying the message "temporarily unavailable".
A representative of an Apple store in Istanbul said that under the current conditions, people view electronic products both as investments and as objects of use value.
"The situation is quite surreal with the economy and everything else, but people see in the products something that keeps its value and is crowded in stores. They know they will be able to resell them in a year for more than they paid," he said. respectively, under the protection of anonymity.
The situation was summed up by Caner, a graphic designer from Istanbul who wanted to buy an electric scooter and who spoke to the Reuters reporter:
"It's the worst time to spend money, but there won't be a better time. Prices may seem high now, but they're lower than next week."
Sources: Reuters, Agerpres
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