UPDATE - Turkey: Economic confidence up in October

REVISED HEADLINE, DECK, REVISED THROUGHOUT; UPDATED WITH TREASURY AND FINANCE MINISTER BERAT ALBAYRAK'S COMMENT AND MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's economic confidence index posted a monthly improvement in October, official data showed on Wednesday.

The index rose 4.8% to reach 92.8 in October, up from 88.5 in September, the Turkish Statistical Institute or TurkStat said.

"This increase in the economic confidence index stemmed from the increases in real sector (manufacturing industry), services, retail trade and construction confidence indices," TurkStat noted.

Among sub-indices, the services and real sector indices posted the highest month-on-month increases in October with 6.4% and 3.8%, respectively.

Retail trade indices rose by 1.7% and the construction index was up by 0.6% during the month, while only the consumer confidence index saw a small drop of 0.1%.

The consumer confidence index, calculated from the survey results, is evaluated within a range of 0-200, indicating an optimistic outlook when the index is above 100, and a pessimistic one when it is below.

The economic confidence index was 93.6 in the same month last year, and had been around the 90-100 level until March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began being felt worldwide.

In April, when the first COVID-19 case appeared in Turkey, the index fell 43.7% to 52.4, but it has been climbing gradually ever since.

Berat Albayrak, the treasury and finance minister, tweeted Wednesday that despite the people who try to paint a picture of Turkey as “bankrupt,” confidence in the country's economy is rising.