Turkey: Consumer confidence flat in February

Monitoring Desk

ANKARA: Turkish consumers’ confidence in the country’s economy is flat in February, going down 0.1 percent compared to the figure in January, Turkey’s statistical authority announced on Tuesday.

The consumer confidence index stands at 72.25 this month, while it was 72.33 in January. The index value is figured out in cooperation with the TurkStat and Central Bank by measuring the consumers’ tendencies.

Last month, consumer confidence index showed a steep climb — up 11.1 percent — from 65.1 in December. Last year, the highest index value was recorded in May with 72.8 while the consumer confidence was down in the last five months of 2017.

This February, consumers’ expectations for a better general economic situation in the coming twelve months increase, as the general economic situation expectation index is 96.8 — rising 0.7 percent from 96.1 in January.

The financial situation expectation of household index, showing consumers’ expectations for a better financial situation of household in the next 12 months period, also rose by 0.2 percent to reach 91.3 this month.

“The number of people unemployed expectation index decreased by 0.9 percent, compared to January and became 75.3 in February,” TurkStat said. “This decrease stemmed from the decrease of people expecting a decrease in the number of unemployed persons in the next 12 months.”

On the saving side, TurkStat data shows that the consumers’ tendencies to save money for the next twelve months period fell, as a result, the probability of saving index which was 26.2 last month decreased by 1.9 percent to 25.7 in February.

Consumers’ assessments and expectations on nearly 20 economic and financial items are measured in monthly tendency surveys.

According to the TurkStat, the consumer confidence index calculated from the survey results is evaluated within the range of 0-200, indicating an optimistic outlook when the index is above 100, a pessimistic outlook when it is below 100.

Turkey’s statistical authority will release the next results on Tuesday, March 20.AA