Business confidence improved in February in Turkey

ANKARA

The business confidence index increased by a strong 4.5 percent on a monthly basis to touch 97.2 in February, data from the Turkish Central Bank showed on Feb. 22.

That followed the 1.6 percent month-on-month improvement recorded in January.

The 100-point level on the index separates optimism from pessimism.

Six of the business sentiment survey’s eight main sub-indices rose in January month-on-month, the Central Bank data showed.

The sharpest increase was registered in the sub-index measuring the assessment of general business outlook. The related index increased to 92.7 in February from 82.9 in January.

The survey also suggested that businesses expect an increase in employment in the next three months while they also said they would increase their fixed capital investments over the same period.

Sectoral confidence down

On a related note, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) reported on Feb. 22 that confidence in Turkey’s construction and retail trade sectors dropped, while confidence in the services sector rose in February from the previous month.

The construction sector index dropped 8.7 percent to 51.8 this month, from 56.7 in January, while the retail trade confidence index fell 1.9 percent month-on-month to 90.8 in February. The services sector confidence index was up 1.5 percent to 79.5 points.

Separately, the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) announced on Feb. 22 that the number of newly established companies fell 13.2 percent year-on-year to 8,278 in January.

Some 1,927 companies went out of business in January, a drop of 13 percent from a year ago.