Turkish December Industrial Output Rose 2.7 Percent in Month
February 08, 2012, 7:57 AM ESTBy Steve Bryant
(Updates with economist comment in fourth paragraph.)
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Turkish industrial production rose 2.7 percent in December from a month earlier, erasing a decline in November and pushing the annual figure above expectations.
Output rose 3.7 percent annually, according to unadjusted figures on the website of the state statistics institute in Ankara today. That compared with a median forecast of 2.8 percent in a Bloomberg survey of eight economists.
The central bank began tightening monetary policy in October and intensified the squeeze in late December as a slump in the value of the lira helped drive inflation to nearly double the 5.5 percent goal. Output grew an average of 8.9 percent last year, compared with 13.1 percent in 2010, when gross domestic product expanded 9 percent.
“Despite sour global developments, the Turkish economy shows significant resilience,” Ozgur Altug, chief economist for BGC Partners in Istanbul, said in an e-mailed report. The figures suggest that full-year growth last year may be “around 8.5 percent, compared to our current forecast of 8.1 percent.”
Adjusted for the number of working days, annual output growth slowed to 3.8 percent, the lowest reading in the year, from 5.3 percent in November.
The slowdown “suggests the policy is gradually achieving its goal,” Tevfik Aksoy, chief economist for the region at Morgan Stanley & Co., said by e-mail.
--With assistance from Giovanni Salzano in Rome. Editors: Louis Meixler, Ben Holland.
To contact the reporter on this story: Steve Bryant in Ankara at sbryant5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
