Current account, industrial production data out this week

ISTANBUL

This week will see the releases of some key macroeconomic data, including the current account balance, industrial production and jobless rate.

Today, the Central Bank will announce the current account figures for February. Analysts expect the current account gap to be around $8.5 billion in February.

The latest data from the Central Bank showed that Türkiye posted a current account deficit of $9.85 billion in January, up from a deficit of $6.9 billion in the same month of 2022.

Last year, the country’s current account deficit amounted to $48.7 billion, while the government forecast in its latest medium-term program that the deficit will shrink to $22 billion or 2.5 percent of the estimated GDP in 2023.

Also, today the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) will release the unemployment data for February.

The jobless rate declined from 10.2 percent in December 2022 to 9.7 percent in January. The number of unemployed people fell by 166,000 from the previous month to 3.4 million in January.

Another important data the markets will closely watch is the industrial production for February. The pace of growth in industrial output slowed from 8.9 percent year-on-year in December last year to 4.5 percent in the first month of 2023.

The monthly increase in industrial production on a seasonally and calendar adjusted basis, however, accelerated from 0.9 percent to 1.9 percent.

TÜİK will release this data tomorrow.

The construction cost index and data on the turnover in the industry, trade, services and construction sectors will also be released this week.