By Yeliz Candemir<\/p>\n
ISTANBUL \u2014 Turkey\u2019s industrial output fell sharply in December, disappointing markets and indicating that the country\u2019s economy may have undershot the government\u2019s projected 3.2% expansion last year.<\/p>\n
The contraction in December was greater than expected, economists said. Data from the state statistics agency, TUIK, on Friday showed Turkey\u2019s industrial production fell 3.8% on an annual basis in December, compared with an annual rise of 11.3% in November.<\/p>\n
Some economists said the downbeat reading wouldn\u2019t necessarily spur the central bank to take action promptly, as industrial output had been very volatile during the second half of last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe data indicate that 2012 gross domestic product growth is likely to stay below 3%,\u201d said Gulay Elif Girgin, chief economist with Ata Invest in Istanbul.<\/p>\n
Last month, the central bank cut its overnight borrowing rate to 4.75% from 5% and its overnight lending rate to 8.75% from 9%, in a move to curb the lira\u2019s strength and rein in excessive capital inflows, while holding its one-week benchmark interest rate steady at 5.5%.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a monetary-policy perspective, a stronger industrial-production performance, along with the recent pickup in loan growth, could make the central bank much more cautious. This combination would urge the bank to tighten liquidity much earlier than [it] would otherwise,\u201d said Yarkin Cebeci, an economist at J.P. Morgan Chase JPM +0.83% & Co. in Istanbul. \u201cWith this weakness in industrial output, the bank would now be happy to wait for a few more data points before getting more serious on its policy reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a bid to stimulate economic growth, Turkey\u2019s central bank eased its monetary policy during the second half of 2012 and reduced borrowing rates for banks to 5.5% by the end of the year from a peak of 12% earlier in the year.<\/p>\n
The central bank had forecast that economic growth would begin to pick up significantly in the fourth quarter after the economy slowed to 1.6% growth in the third quarter, the weakest pace since 2009.<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s government expects 4% growth this year from an estimated 3.2% annual expansion last year. Turkey\u2019s 2012 gross domestic product data will be disclosed on April 1.<\/p>\n
Digging into Friday\u2019s data, a breakdown showed sharp falls in many sectors. A 10.4% decline in mining output provided the largest drop in industrial output, while manufacturing output fell 3.6% and electricity output and distribution dropped 2.9%.<\/p>\n
via Turkey\u2019s Industrial Output Slumps – Emerging Europe Real Time – WSJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Yeliz Candemir ISTANBUL \u2014 Turkey\u2019s industrial output fell sharply in December, disappointing markets and indicating that the country\u2019s economy may have undershot the government\u2019s projected 3.2% expansion last year. The contraction in December was greater than expected, economists said. Data from the state statistics agency, TUIK, on Friday showed Turkey\u2019s industrial production fell 3.8% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":68792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[846],"tags":[6482],"class_list":["post-64946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-gdp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}