Turkey: Economic confidence up in April

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's economic confidence index rose by 3.4% in April, on a monthly basis, the country's statistical authority announced Monday.

The index reached 84.7 points in April, up from 81.9 points in March, according to TurkStat's data.

The institute said the surge in economic confidence was mainly due to gains in consumer, real sector and services confidence indices.

"Consumer, real sector and services confidence indices increased to 63.5, 100 and 83.1, respectively," TurkStat noted.

It added that retail trade and construction confidence indices dropped to 90.6 points and 53.9 points, respectively, in April versus March.

TurkStat said the economic confidence index is a composite index that encapsulates consumers' and producers' evaluations, expectations, and tendencies about the general economic situation.

A total of 20 sub-indices are used in the calculation, with data collected in the first two weeks of each month.

A value above 100 shows an optimistic outlook for the general economic situation, while a value below 100, a pessimistic outlook.

In 2018, the index saw its highest value in January at 105.2 points, as the lowest figure was recorded at 75.2 points in November.