ISTANBUL

Turkish consumers’ confidence in the economy fell 2.7% this month, Turkey's statistical authority said Thursday.

On a monthly basis, the index was at 57.3 in February, down over one point from the previous month, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced.

In January, the consumer confidence index rose slightly 0.1% to 58.8 versus December 2019.

The index value is jointly calculated by TurkStat and the Turkish Central Bank through measuring consumer tendencies.

On nearly 20 economic and financial criteria, consumers’ assessments and expectations for the next 12 months are measured in monthly tendency surveys.

The index is calculated from the survey results on a range of 0-200, with above 100 indicating an optimistic outlook, and below 100 a pessimistic outlook.

In February, the index for general economic situation expectations fell to 75.9 from 77.4 in January.

The financial situation expectation of household index dropped 3.4% from the previous month to stand at 76.8 in February.

The institute said: "The probability of saving index in the next 12-month period which was 21.6 in January increased by 4.2% to 22.5 in February."

The number of people unemployed expectation index also fell 5.3% to stand at 53.8 month-on-month in February.

In 2019, the index value hovered between 63.5 and 55.3, with the highest in April and the lowest in May.

The country's statistical authority will release the next survey results on March 23.