Turkey sees mixed picture for sectoral confidence in May

ANKARA

Turkey's services and retail trade sectors posted declines in confidence in May, while the construction sector saw an increase, the country's statistical authority reported on Tuesday.

Seasonally adjusted confidence indices for services and retail trade were down by 1.1% and 2.1%, respectively, month-on-month in May, and the construction sector index was up by 3%, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

The index for services dropped to 102.2 in May, down from 103.3 in April.

In the services sector, the business situation and demand-turnover over past three months sub-indices saw declines in May compared to the previous month, "and demand-turnover expectation over next three months sub-index increased by 5.2% to 109."

The retail trade confidence index decreased to 100.9 in May.

Business activity-sales over past three months posted decline while current volume of stock sub-index and business activity-sales expectation over next three months sub-index increased in May.

The construction sector index was up to 79.6 this month from 77.3 in the previous month.

Sub-index of current overall order books decreased while total employment expectation sub-index was up in the month.

Sectoral confidence indices calculated from the monthly survey results are evaluated within the range of 0-200.

These indices indicate an optimistic outlook when the value is above 100, a pessimistic outlook when it is below 100.