Turkey: Sectoral confidence slips in December

ANKARA

Confidence in Turkey's key sectors fell on a monthly basis in December, the country's statistical authority said Friday.

The services confidence index dropped the most this month with a 9.2% month-on-month decrease to reach 70.4 points, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data showed.

The drop was largely driven by weak demand due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Turkey's retail trade sector index slipped 7.8% to 87.6 points during the same period, as managers in the sector said business activity sales had worsened over the past three months while projecting it to grow in the coming months.

The construction sector confidence index posted a 7.2% decrease monthly, reaching 73.3 in December, stemming from a fall in subindices of current overall order books and total employment expectation.

Calculated from the monthly survey, results are evaluated within the range of 0-200; sectoral confidence indices signal an optimistic outlook when the value is above 100, and a pessimistic outlook when it is below 100.