Turkish economic sentiment rises for second straight month in May

By bne IntelliNews May 27, 2015

The economic confidence index rose for a second straight month in May, data of the statistics office TUIK showed on May 27.

The headline index increased 1.5% m/m in May after rising 3.6% m/m in the previous month and posting a 13.9% m/m decline in March.

The rise in overall economic sentiment in May was driven by the improvements in real sector (manufacturing), services sector, retail industry and construction sector confidence. The real sector confidence sub-index was up 1.2% m/m, services sector confidence rose 0.1% m/m, retail industry confidence increased 1.4% m/m, and construction sector confidence rose 2.9% m/m in May.

However, TUIK reported a 1.6% m/m decline in consumer confidence which rose 1.5% m/m in April.

The rise in economic sentiment in May is rather surprising as the country is heading for elections in June. The AKP is expected to win the upcoming elections, but recent surveys conducted by pollsters Konda and Sonar suggest that support for the ruling party is waning. Konda estimated support for the AKP at 40.5% while Sonar put AKP support at 41%. Hakan Bayrakci from Sonar argues that if the AKP gets 41% of the votes it would not be able to form a single-party government.

Turkey's Confidence Indices
	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Economic	92.6	92.8	90.8	78.2	81.0	82.2
Consumer	67.7	67.7	68.1	64.4	65.4	64.3
Real Sector	108.2	106.4	104.2	101.2	102.7	103.9
Services	98.8	101.1	101.9	101.1	100.6	100.7
Retail	107.2	104.3	103.5	103.0	101.8	103.3
Construction	83.4	82.5	84.9	83.5	81.0	83.4
source: tuik

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