By Mucahithan Avcioglu
ISTANBUL (AA) - The capacity utilization rate for the Turkish manufacturing industry rose to 75.1% in May, a Turkish Central Bank survey said Thursday.
The figure was up by 0.5 percentage points on a monthly basis from a 74.6% utilization rate in April.
The data said that the highest utilization in this month was 75% in intermediate goods, up from 74.5% in April.
Meanwhile, the lowest utilization rate was 72.3% in durable consumer goods in May, also up from 71.9% in the previous month.
Broken down by sector, the highest capacity usage was in the manufacture of tobacco products at 83.5%, while the lowest, 63.5%, was in leather products.
Capacity utilization rate figures are based on responses to a business tendency survey of local units operating in the manufacturing industry.
The Turkish Central Bank said 1,849 companies responded to the survey this month, and the data does not reflect the bank's views or predictions.