Turkey's industrial output shows a modest rise

Turkey’s industrial output shows a modest rise

Turkey's State Institute of Statistics (DIE) disclosed that the country's industrial output increased a modest 2.1 percent in May, which is lower than the market expectations of 3.3%. Thus, the average industrial production for the first five months of the year reached 5.0 percent. Factoring out the seasonal data, industrial output saw a decline of 0.9 percent. The decrease in coke and refining output contributed to this contraction. In the meantime, the manufacturing sector production stood at 1.1 percent. It is seen that despite the high production performance, the increase compared to the previous year started to slow down in 2005. The robust export performance was driving the production figures higher in the previous months as the domestic demand was cooling down. However, as the export figures started hovering $6 billion levels, the increase in production started to lose momentum. The slow growth in the manufacturing sector was mainly fuelled by the 8.9 percent decline in the petroleum production, 21.2 percent decline in clothing sector and 7.4 percent fall in the textile sector. In addition, the motor vehicles production rose only 4.2 percent in May. Economists expect industrial output to grow 5.0 percent in 2005 after the 9.9 percent growth recorded in 2004.