Turkey: Mixed picture for sectoral confidence in Feb

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Confidence in Turkey's service and construction sectors diminished, while retail trade increased on a monthly basis in February, the country's statistical authority revealed on Monday.

The services confidence index reached 100.4 this month, decreasing 1.4% from January thanks to a fall in "demand-turnover" and expectations on it, as well as business sentiment, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said in a statement.

Calculated with data gathered via a monthly survey, sectoral confidence indices are evaluated within a range of 0-200. Values above 100 signal an optimistic outlook, while those below indicate a pessimistic one.

The construction confidence index fell 1.3% month-on-month to 83.1 in February.

Compared to the previous month, the sector's current overall order books sub-index rose by 1.6% to 76.9. The total employment expectation over the next three months sub-index decreased by 3.6% to 89.3, said TurkStat.

The confidence index for retail trade was slightly up by 0.4% to 108.9 in the same period, as the indices of current stock volumes and business activity sales increased, it added.