The Turkish Lira fell past 17 per dollar, a level not seen since last December. People rushed into foreign currencies following President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruling out higher interest rates despite soaring inflation.

As Erdogan refuses to tighten monetary policy to try and reign in inflation, the Lira fell as much as 2% to 17.1048 per dollar on Wednesday. That is the worst performance in an emerging market, as the decline extends into a 10th consecutive year of declines. Meanwhile absent essentially any monetary policy, inflation is running at the fastest rate since 1998.

This week, Erdogan swore there would be no monetary tightening, and even promised rate cuts in a speech to the Turkish people, triggering an even steeper decline. Companies immediately stepped up foreign exchange purchases of other currencies.

Peter Kinsella, the head of currency strategy at Union Bancaire Privee UBP said, “Erdogan’s comments are nothing new, but with inflation at 73% year-on-year, his comments give the situation a pretty surreal quality. Further weakness is inevitable, just reflecting the usual issues — massive inflation, high levels of credit growth and a consequent widening in the current-account deficit.”

Meanwhile the nation’s credit default swaps have surged to the highest level since 2008.

Turkey’s monetary problems extend back to at least 2016 when Erdogan defeated a a coup. Policy rates have been held stead at 14% for the last five central bank meetings, even as consumer price growth rose to 73.5% amid a global supply crunch. As a result, when adjusted for inflation, Turkey now has the world’s deepest negative policy rates.