Capacity utilization for Turkey’s manufacturing sector continued its slight rebound and increased in May from a month ago, official data showed Monday.

The measure of how fully firms are using their resources increased 0.2 percentage points to 78% this month, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) said, up from 77.8% in April.

The capacity utilization rate (CUR) increase followed a slight rebound in March and April, after a drop in January and February due to electricity and natural gas cuts at industrial facilities stemming from a technical failure in Iran.

The gauge fell 0.6 and 1 percentage point in January and February, respectively, before increasing 0.7 and 0.5 percentage points in March and April.

The manufacturing activity had followed a sustained a solid trend since the lifting of measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The CUR figures are based on the responses given to a business tendency survey by local units operating in the manufacturing industry, according to the central bank.

The highest CUR was 80% for intermediate goods among the main industrial groups, while the lowest was 74.4% for durable consumer goods.

The measure had steeply dropped in the face of the initial coronavirus wave. It has since made a recovery because subsequent measures largely skirted the manufacturing sector and most remaining restrictions were lifted in July of last year.