Consumer confidence improves in April

ANKARA

Confidence among Turkish consumers improved for a second month in a row in April, according to a survey conducted jointly by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) and the Central Bank.

The headline consumer confidence index rose by 1.4 percent month-on-month to 80.5, after inching up 0.02 percent in March.

Any figure below the 100 mark indicates pessimism among consumers.

The sub-index measuring households’ assessment of their current financial situation declined 2.3 percent in April after dropping 0.7 percent in the previous month, data from the survey showed on April 22.

Households became more optimistic about their financial situation in the next 12 months, with the related sub-index surging 5 percent from March.

The monthly rise in the index of consumers’ expectations regarding the general economic situation in the next 12 months accelerated from 0.4 percent last month to 4.4 percent in April.

However, the survey showed that consumers appeared to be less optimistic that prices would decline in the next 12 months compared with the past 12 months.

The annual inflation rate climbed from 67.1 percent in February to 68.5 percent in March. The monthly inflation, however, slowed from 4.5 percent to 3.2 percent.

The consumer tendency survey also showed that the sub-index measuring the probability of buying a house rose by 5.7 percent in April, after increasing 10.2 percent in the previous month.