President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday reiterated his government’s determination to tame inflation, which he said would fall to "reasonable" levels as of February next year.

Türkiye’s annual inflation topped 80% in August, a fresh 24-year high, driven mainly by soaring food and energy prices, which rocketed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Yet the increase turned out to be smaller than in previous months, signaling that price pressure might be slowing.

"We will reduce inflation to reasonable levels in February, and then we are determined to bring it down to single digits," Erdoğan told an event attended by businesspeople in Istanbul.

"We’ve done that in the past. We had reduced the interest rates to 4.6% and inflation to 6.2%."

The government says inflation will fall with its economic program prioritizing low-interest rates to boost exports, production and investments, aiming to lower the increase in consumer prices by flipping Türkiye’s chronic current account deficits to a surplus.

"The goal of the Turkish economic model has been to grow our country through investment, employment and current account surplus. Those who criticize our country because of the economic model have come to the same line as us," Erdoğan said.

"Türkiye is no longer the old Türkiye. It turned out that the inflation, interest rate and exchange rate balance imposed for years has been of no use."

Erdoğan is known for opposing higher borrowing costs, which he says only makes "the rich richer and the poor poorer." He often calls high-interest rates the "mother of all evil."

Higher interest rates make it more expensive for households and businesses to borrow money. Yet the government has sought to boost production, exports and employment with a low-rates policy.

Erdoğan last week said inflation was not an "insurmountable economic threat," adding it will begin to fall at the end of the year.

Türkiye is almost completely dependent on imports to cover its energy needs, which leaves it vulnerable to rising costs that skyrocketed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and domestic demand has risen since the pandemic.

To help households cope with rising costs, Türkiye in 2021 introduced fuel, electricity and gas subsidies. The amount of the government subsidies has reached nearly TL 500,000 billion ($27.1 billion), Erdoğan said on Sunday.

The government sees inflation falling to 65% by the end of the year and 24.9% by the end of 2023.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) last month raised its year-end inflation forecast to 60.4% and saw it peaking near 90% in the autumn.

The central bank surprised markets again on Thursday as it eased its monetary policy further by slashing its benchmark policy rate for the second consecutive month.

It cited continued indications of an economic slowdown in the third quarter as it lowered its one-week repo rate to 12% from 13%.

Since the cut in August, the central bank has taken steps that are meant to address the widening gap between the bank’s policy rate and lending rates. One move was mandating banks to hold bonds for loans with interest rates above a certain level.

Erdoğan on Sunday also called on businesspeople to make investments with low-interest rates.