Turkey: Economic confidence rises in August

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - The economic confidence index in Turkey advanced 7.9% on a monthly basis in August, official data revealed on Wednesday.

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said the economic confidence index hit 87.1 this month, up from 80.7 in July.

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

The services confidence index posted the highest increase among other sub-indexes with 6.7% during the same period.

Construction and real sector confidence indices followed with 6% and 5.7% advances, respectively.

In August, retail trade confidence index went up 5.1% from last month.

The sub-index tracking consumer confidence also soared by 3.1% in the same period of time, TurkStat added.

The economic confidence index is seen as a significant reading of the economic course as it is a composite index that aggregates sub-indices of consumer confidence, real sector services, retail trade and construction confidence indices, reflecting an overall sentiment of health of the economy.