Turkey's inflation performance is the worst in 30 years, said Cevdet Akcay, an economist who has been studying prices in the country for 30 years.

Turkey's consumer price inflation jumped to 70 percent last month, the highest level since the financial crisis two decades ago. Producer price inflation accelerated to 122 percent. Inflation in Turkey is the highest among emerging market and industrialized countries.

Akcay said his concern is not so much how high inflation will be, but where it ends up when it eventually slows down. It would be a disaster, he said, if Turkey's inflation declined and then stuck in the 30s.

He said the country experienced what it called relative price chaos when comparing prices for goods such as televisions or cars.

According to Akcay, it is not normal for the country when people buy used cars as an investment, rather than putting cash into bank deposits.

The government has said it will boost purchasing power to help people cope with inflation, but there is a risk that purchasing power will be completely wiped out, he said.

The central bank, which cut interest rates late last year, doesn't seem to be worried about inflation. But people need reassurance that price increases will slow down, he said.

The central bank and the government expect that inflation will start to slow down after May, and by the end of the year the decline will become more noticeable. They blame the high price increases largely on global factors such as energy prices and supply disruptions, as well as on price manipulators, who they say will be punished. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruled out raising interest rates.