Confidence indices drop in December

Confidence indices for Turkey's construction sector decreased by 4.9 percent while the Services and Retail trades decreased by 4.6 percent and 6.4 percent respectively over the previous month in December 2013. The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) released on Wednesday the Sectoral Confidence Indices of December 2013. The confidence index, which was recorded at 99.6 for services, 98.2 for retail trade and 77.1 for construction sectors in previous month, became 95, 92 and 73.3 respectively. The decrease in the services confidence index stemmed from the deterioration in the business situation over the past three months sub-index by 6percent, demand-turnover over the past three months sub-index by 4percent and demand-turnover expectation over next three months sub-index by 3.6percent The decrease in the retail trade confidence index stemmed from the decline in business activity-sales over the past three months sub-index by 15.6percent and business activity-sales expectation over the next three months sub-index by 6.4percent. The current volume of stock sub-index increased by 3percent compared to the previous month. The decline in the construction confidence index stemmed from the decrease in current overall order books and total employment expectation over the next three months sub-indices that decreased by 2percent and 7.2percent respectively compared to the previous month, Sectoral Confidence Indices can take a value between 0 and 200 and indicate an optimistic outlook when the index is above 100, but a pessimistic outlook below 100.