Markets buoyed by positive economic data
Posted by meb at February 16th, 2007
Two pieces of good news about the Turkish economy affected the markets Thursday. Turkey’s unemployment rate fell to 9.6 percent while the industry’s capacity utilization ratio rose to 78.5 points, a rare situation since such positive results for unemployment and capacity utilization don’t often coincide.
Boosted by the positive tendency in the international markets as well, the İstanbul Stock Exchange welcomed the statistics and rose to above 44,000 points. The US dollar was traded at below YTL 1.39. However markets have steadied waiting for the Monetary Committee meeting which will be held Thursday evening. The number of unemployed in Turkey decreased by 196,000 to 2.4 million for the November 2006 period but including figures for the full quarter.
The number of unemployed in Turkey decreased by 196,000 to 2.4 million for the November 2006 period but including figures for the full quarter, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute’s (Turkstat) quarterly householder labor survey.
The unemployment rate declined to 9.6 percent, over 10.6 percent in November 2005. Unemployment in urban areas declined to 11.7 percent and to 6.5 percent in rural areas. Turkey’s total population increased by 951,000 to 73 million in the same period, while working-age Turks increased by 854,000 to 52 million.
Some 713,000 people started working in the last quarter of 2006, and the total number of employed increased to 22.6 million. The sector shares of the workforce in the same period were 26.2 percent in agriculture, 20.5 percent in industry, 6.1 percent in construction and 47.2 percent in services.
Meanwhile the capacity utilization rate among Turkey’s manufacturers increased to 78.5 percent in January from the January 2005 rate of 75.4 percent.
In the said period, the manufacturing capacity utilization rate in the public sector was 83.1 percent while it was 77.7 percent in the private sector. The highest capacity utilization rate was in TV and communication equipment manufacturing at 87.4 percent.
The rate was 84.1 percent in clothing manufacturing, 84 percent in vehicle manufacturing and 80.9 percent in textiles. The lack of domestic demand was cited as the main reason for not operating at full capacity, while an insufficiency of raw materials as well as financial difficulties and energy shortages were cited as other reasons.
source: Today’s Zaman
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