Turkey’s sectoral confidence indices send mixed signals

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's services and retail trade sectors posted a rise in confidence in September, while the construction sector saw a drop, the country's statistical authority reported on Thursday.

Seasonally adjusted confidence indices for the services sector were up 6.4% while retail trade and construction sector posted decreases of 1.5% and 2%, respectively, month-on-month in September, said TurkStat.

The index for services rose to 74.9 in September, up from 70.5 in August. Compared to the previous month, the sub-indices for business situation and demand turnover over the past three months climbed 12.8% and 12.6%, respectively, while the demand turnover expectations for the next three months’ sub-index fell 2.8%.

After dropping to 93.5 in August, the retail trade confidence index for September was 94.9.

The construction confidence index also posted a decrease to 83.3, down 2% from the previous month.

"In the construction sector, total employment expectation over the next three months sub-index decreased by 3.3% to 96.6," said TurkStat.

Sectoral confidence indices calculated from monthly survey results are evaluated within a range of 0-200.

These indices indicate an optimistic outlook when the value is below 100.