Data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) has shown that Turkey’s economic confidence stood at 95.8 in June, its lowest level in the last seven months, the Artı Gerçek news website reported on Thursday.
According to the report June’s figure of 95.8 represents a 2.5 percent decline compared to May.
The index combines figures pertaining to consumer confidence, real economy, service sector, retail and construction and is calculated as a weighted average of these sectors where real economy, service sector and consumer confidence hold more weight than the others.
It indicates an optimistic outlook about the general economic situation when the index is above 100, while it shows a pessimistic outlook when below 100.
All the sectors taken into account in calculating the index have decreased compared to the previous month, with consumer confidence suffering the sharpest fall of 2.7 percent.
In recent years, Turkey has been suffering from a dramatic rise in the cost of living as constantly high inflation has lowered the value of the country’s currency and chipped away at citizens’ purchasing power.
While TurkStat frequently draws criticism for its questionable statistics, considered by many as the Turkish government’s attempts at embellishing its economic performance, even the agency’s statistics have been pointing to staggeringly high inflation.
Some prominent economists have famously challenged TurkStat’s inflation data, claiming much higher rates.
