Turkey’s construction confidence index collapsed in April due to the coronavirus outbreak in the country. It had been at 77.2 the previous month and showing improvement since the beginning of the year, but fell -44.2% in April to 44.7, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) says in a note seen by Kallanish.
The index for building activity over the past three months decreased to 57.2 in April versus 86.7 in March, while current overall order-books fell to 34.2 from 61.1.
An index above 100 indicates an optimistic outlook, while below 100 indicates a pessimistic outlook.
For every 100 companies surveyed, 39 indicated financial constraints were limiting construction activity versus 42 in March. However, 42.4 said there was insufficient demand versus 31.1 a month earlier, and 17.2 indicated no negative factors compared to 37.1.
TUIK also reports that housing sales in March increased by 3.4% on-year to 108,670 units. However, this is expected to fall sharply in April as Turkey started experiencing the negative effects of the virus towards the end of March.
Turkey’s seasonally-adjusted confidence index decreased by -50.1% in services and -26% in retail trade in April compared to the previous month.
No improvement is expected in May indices due to the impact on the Turkish economy of the pandemic and Ramadan.
