ANKARA: Turkey’s calendar and seasonally adjusted industrial production fell 2 percent month-on-month in May, registering the steepest decline in output in the first five months of the year, government data showed on Wednesday.
Turkish industrial production has been rising since February. May’s fall in industrial output follows a 3.9 percent gain in the preceding month, Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) data showed on Wednesday. Turkish industrial production rose a calendar-adjusted 2.4 percent year-on-year, which was above the market forecast of a 1.9 percent increase. TurkStat said production in the manufacturing sector increased 3 percent in May from a year ago, while mining and quarrying output fell by 9.9 percent in the same period. Among main industrial groupings, the production of non-durable consumer goods grew 6.4 percent and energy increased by 5.4 percent. Meanwhile, the intermediate goods sector registered a 0.5 percent fall in May, according to TurkStat.
On a monthly basis, industrial production dropped a seasonally and calendar-adjusted 2.0 percent in May, after staying flat in the preceding month. It was the first decrease in four months. The industrial output indices are the key indicators of economic growth. The Turkish economy is expected to expand between 2 to 2.5 percent this year — falling far short of the government target of 4 percent — after the June election failed to produce a single-party government, government officials said on Monday. Turkey’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 2.3 percent in the first quarter.
