Business morale improves for second month in a row: Data
ISTANBUL
Business morale improved for a second consecutive month in February, data from the Central Bank has shown.
The real sector confidence index increased from 100.9 in January to 102.4 in February, according to the bank’s business tendency survey on Feb. 24.
An index value above the 100 mark indicates optimism among businesses.
The sub-index of general business condition rose from 90.8 in the previous month to 93 in February, while the index of export orders in the next three months advanced 3.7 percent month-on-month to 121.9. The total amount of current orders was up 2.7 percent.
The indicators of past orders and employment in the next three months also improved in February compared to January.
But the index of fixed investment expenditure and the volume of output in the next three months fell 0.7 percent and 2.5 percent month-on-month, respectively.
Separate data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) on Feb. 24 showed that business confidence in the retail sector rose by 1.6 percent in February monthly after advancing 1.4 percent in January.
In the services sector, confidence, which climbed 2.5 percent month-on-month in January, fell 1.9 percent.
Confidence in the construction sector dropped 2.7 percent in February against the 2.6 percent increase recorded in the previous month.
The Central Bank also reported on Feb. 24 that the unadjusted capacity utilization rate (CUR) in the manufacturing sector ticked down from 74.6 percent in January to 74.5 percent in February.
Companies operating in the durable consumer goods sector used 70.5 percent of their capacity, down from 71.1 percent, while the CUR in the non-durable consumer goods sector inched up from 72.9 percent to 73.5 percent.
In the consumer goods sector, the capacity usage was 73 percent in January, rising from 72.6 percent in the previous month.
Companies in the investment goods sector worked at 71.6 percent capacity in February, down from 73.5 percent in January.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the capacity utilization rate saw a slight increase of 0.1 percentage points to 74.9 percent month-on-month in February.
