Turkey's economic confidence index at 91.8 in March

ANKARA

Turkey's economic confidence index reached 91.8 in March, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced on Friday.

The figure was down 5.9% from a month earlier, TurkStat said in a statement, attributing the decrease to a fall in real sector, services and retail trade confidence indices.

According to the report, the sub-index for construction showed an improvement, rising 3.7% this month.

The consumer confidence index rose 1.7% month-on-month in March.

The confidence in real sector deteriorated the most, going down 7.6% during the same period.

The services and retail trade confidence indexes declined 6% and 1.2%, respectively from a month earlier in March.

The economic confidence index is a composite index that encapsulates consumers' and producers' evaluations, expectations and tendencies about general economic situation, TurkStat said.

It indicates an optimistic outlook about the general economic situation when economic confidence index is above 100, whereas it shows a pessimistic outlook with an index below 100, it added.