Sectoral confidence slips in Jan

ANKARA (AA): Confidence in Turkey’s services and retail trade sectors slipped while the construction sector rose in January compared to the previous month, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced Friday.

The retail trade confidence index was 92.5 points this month, down 4 percent from December. “Current volume of stock and business activity-sales expectation indices both decreased by 5.5% compared to last month to 111.6 and 89.4, respectively. However, business activity-sales index increased by 0.2 percent to 76.6,” TurkStat said.

The services sector index fell by 4 percent to 78.3 in January from 81.5 last month, while the business situation, demand-turnover and demand-turnover expectation indices were lower during the same period.

Turkey’s construction sector confidence index saw a rise of 2.5 percent month-on-month to 55.4 in January.

“In construction sector; current overall order books index increased by 18.2 percent compared to the previous month to 46.4. However, total employment expectation index decreased by 6.2 percent to 67.1.”