Industrial production in Turkey posted an increase of 7.5% year-on-year in February 2020, the national statistical body announced Monday.
In the month, all three main sub-indices – mining and quarrying, manufacturing and electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning – rose 1.7%, 8% and 4.4%, respectively, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.
The figure was up 1.2% in February, compared with the previous month.
In terms of industrial sub-sectors, only the monthly figures for the mining and quarrying index saw a decline with a fall of 5.8%.
The manufacturing and electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply indices in February rose year-on-year by 1.6% and 1.3%, respectively.
TurkStat calculated the index based on its monthly industrial production survey.
An Anadolu Agency (AA) survey on Friday showed that economists had estimated the index to see an annual rise of 7.9% in February.
Turkish industrial production, viewed as a precursor to growth figures, has expanded since September after contracting annually for 12 straight months.
The economy expanded sharply by 6% in the last quarter of 2019 and nearly 1% in 2019 as a whole, beating expectations and rebounding strongly from the turbulent period it endured since the second half of 2018.
The gross domestic product (GDP) data marked a sharp turnaround for the major emerging market economy, which has a track record in the last two decades of around 5% growth, but was battered by currency volatility, high inflation and high interest rates during a financially and economically turbulent period that kicked off in the second half of 2018, and which resulted in tumbling domestic demand from consumers and investors.
The country’s GDP at current prices surged by 14.9% year-on-year in 2019 to over TL 4.28 trillion ($632 billion), TurkStat data shows. GDP in the fourth quarter was up 17% year-on-year and came in at nearly TL 1.2 trillion.
The government’s New Economic Program (NEP), announced in September last year, targets a 5% annual growth rate for 2020, 2021 and 2022.