UPDATE - Turkey: Economic confidence jumps in June

UPDATE WITH REMARKS FROM TREASURY AND INDUSTRY MINISTERS

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's economic confidence index rose sharply to 73.5 in June, the country's statistical authority said on Monday.

The figure jumped 19.1% from 61.7 last month as Turkey relaxed coronavirus-related restrictions, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data showed.

The month-on-month rise was driven by improvements in the consumer, real sector, services, retail trade, and construction confidence indices.

The construction confidence index surged the most from last month, by 33.1% to 78.

"The consumer confidence index increased by 5.2% to 62.6 and real sector confidence index increased by 22.2%, reaching 89.8," it added.

Commenting on the data, Turkey's Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said: "Confidence in the Turkish economy is on the rise. I hope we will continue 2020 with this performance and take it even further next year."

Mustafa Varank, the country's Industry and Technology Minister, said: "There is a strong revival in all sub-items of the index, especially in the real sector."

Services and retail trade confidence indices also showed an 8.5% and 9.3% rise, respectively.

The economic confidence index measures the degree of optimism in the economy which consumers express through their saving and spending habits.

It indicates an optimistic outlook about the general economic situation when the index is above 100, while it shows a pessimistic outlook when below 100.