P.A. Turkey

Turkish consumers slowly regaining confidence, reports BloombergHT survey

Turkey has two consumer confidence indices.  The official one is published monthly by data collection agency Turkstat.  However, the older one is inherited by private TV broadcaster BloombergHT (no relation to Bloomberg, except the brand franchising agreement) from now defunct CNBC-E TV, and is published twice-monthly.  Both indicators have a positive but imperfect correlation with the consumer expenditures data included in GDP series. BloombergHT data is much more volatile than Turkstat’s, but has the advantage of appearing early. The latest survey covering first half of  June reveals increasing confidence by consumers, who still remain pessimistic, but much less so than a month ago.

The announcement by the agency is below: 

Bloomberg HT Consumer Confidence Index preliminary result for June 2020 displays a rise of 22.21 per cent for the consumer sentiment as the index value of 89.46.

In the first half of June, both the current perceptions of households together with expectations for the future in general and tendency to consumption considerably improved compared to the end of May stance. End of lockdowns and reopening of the economy with sharp decline in interest rates seem to be the main determinants of the improving confidence. In this respect, Bloomberg HT Preliminary Consumer Expectations Index rose by 15.46 percent compared to end of May as of the index number 95.14.  Bloomberg HT Preliminary Consumption Tendency Index which tries to measure consumers’ stance on whether the current period is the right time to buy durable goods, autos and real estate is experiencing a rise of 31.79 percent to the value of 82.48.

Near future path of index seemingly is going to be mainly determined by the dynamics of Covid-19 pandemic and the reopening of the economy.

PA Turkey staff excepts consumer confidence to slump again starting in July, as economic recovery turns out to be much weaker than the administration has loudly advertised, while rising Covid-19  cases could herald a second wave of infections.  According to another survey by polling agency Ipsos, economic crisis has once again become the primary concern of Turkish household in June readings.

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