Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the Turkish people should ignore the “monkey business” of global credit ratings agencies in the wake of a downgrade by Moody’s, opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet said.

“Do not look at the monkey business of certain credit ratings agencies,” Erdoğan said. “They want to squeeze Turkey into a corner.”

Neither Turkey’s markets nor the international markets paid any attention to credit ratings agencies any longer, he said.

“The grade you give us is not our report card; our report card is our people’s grade. That’s what we look at. Today’s Turkey has broken world growth records.”

Moody’s gave two main reasons for downgrading Turkey from a Ba1 to a Ba2 rating when it announced the decision of Wednesday. “The continued loss of institutional strength” and “the increased risk of an external shock crystallising given the country's wide current account deficits, higher external debt and associated large rollover requirements in the context of heightened political risks and rising global interest rates”.

The ratings agency also said plans by Erdoğan to further strengthen his office after elections next year would further undermine the predictability and effectiveness of policymaking.