Turkish economic confidence rebounds in March

ANKARA

Confidence in the Turkish economy has rebounded sharply in March after a three-month decline, according to official data released on Friday.

The Economic Confidence index rose 9.5 percent compared with the previous month, from 71.46 points in February to 78.27 points in March, the Turkish Statistical Institute said in a report.

The surge in economic confidence index was driven by three sub-readings of the data, namely services, retail trade and consumer confidence indices.

The services confidence index was up 4.8 percent reaching 93.50 points in March. Retail trade confidence index also surged to 110.51 points, up 4.1 percent. Consumer confidence index saw a slight improvement, 0.5 percent compared to February, reaching 67 points in March.

However, confidence in the real sector index dropped by 1 percent to 104.10 while construction confidence index slipped 1.7 percent to 81.43 points.

Following the surge in geopolitical tension in Syria and the downing of a Russian fighter jet in November, economic confidence in the Turkish economy began to fall last December and has kept falling until March of this year.

The index has slipped in December, January and February by 3.8 percent, 16.8 percent and 14.8 percent respectively after a whopping surge of 26.7 percent in November as markets welcomed the clear victory of the Justice and Development (AK) Party in the Nov. 1 elections.