Turkish central bank seen leaving rates on hold next week: Reuters poll

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The Turkish Central Bank is expected to leave its policy rate, the one-week repo rate, unchanged at 7.50 percent at its monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting on March 17, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

One economist out of 21 forecast a 25 basis-point rate cut next Tuesday, with the central bank shying away from a cut over fears that a slide in the lira to record lows was endangering an expected downward trend in inflation.

Along with a surging dollar, President Tayyip Erdogan's pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates and boost growth ahead of a June general election has hit the lira hard and investors will be closely watching the MPC decision.

However, Erdogan sought to ease tensions over monetary policy on Thursday, saying his talks a day earlier with Central Bank Governor Erdem Basci had ended in a positive way and with a consensus.

"We saw with the February inflation data that the disinflation process has not advanced as anticipated this year because of the lira weakening," said Finansbank economist Gokce Celik.

Annual consumer price inflation rose to 7.55 percent in February from 7.24 percent a month earlier, well above a central bank target of 5 percent.

"With the impact of the pass-through, the exchange rate at these levels or tending to ease further may weaken the expected fall in inflation. Hence, we think the current outlook will not allow for an interest rate cut in March," Celik said.

A central bank survey on Friday showed end-2015 year-on-year CPI was seen at 6.98 percent, up from 6.77 percent in the previous survey.

(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Ayla Jean Yackley)