Turkey ends 2004 with strong industrial output
Turkey's State Institute of Statistics (DIE) data show that the country's industrial output rose 4.7% in December, beating market expectations of 2.3%. The strong December output figure is attributed to exports and capital spending of the public sector. The breakdown shows that the increase in output is widespread across many sectors. Chemical sector output rose 13.6% year-on-year, electrical machinery output 87%, iron and ferrous metal output 8.2%, printing output 37% and furniture output 11.3%. The strong increase in electrical machinery reflects robust capital spending. For 2004 as a whole, industrial output rose 9.8%. Automotive sector output, which climbed 50% on average, contributed 2.7 percentage points to the increase in industrial output. Chemicals and electrical machinery assisted industrial output by 1.2 and 1.1 percentage points respectively. Industrial output is expected to fall in January 2005 year-on-year, but increase in February.