Tanıl Küçük, president of the İstanbul Chamber of Commerce (İSO), on Friday announced the results of the chamber’s recent Economic Situation Assessment Survey for the second half of 2009. Küçük stressed that the results of the first biannual survey of 2009 were extremely negative, while the survey for the second half suggests a much more optimistic outlook for the future. Although more than 50 percent of companies surveyed posted negative figures in every area of operation, including profit, production and sales, in the first six months of last year, the situation improved in all areas except employment in the July-December period, he said. Companies posting a decline in production dropped from 52.2 percent to 31.2 percent in the same period. While 52.5 percent of firms were complaining about a fall in domestic sales in the first half, this figure was down to 33.5 percent in the second half. Companies complaining of a drop in foreign sales and new orders also totaled 32.8 percent and 32.7 percent, respectively, while they were 51.7 percent and 54.3 percent in the first half.Twenty-two percent of companies posted a profit in the second half of 2009 compared to the same period of the year before, up from 15.5 percent in the first half. Still far from satisfactory levels, these figures show that problems still exist even though the situation has begun to be eased, the report stated. Sixty-three percent of firms surveyed announced that their profit margin was below their profit margin for the second half of 2008, indicating that a majority of the firms still suffer from financial problems, according to the İSO report. In the first half of 2009, 68.7 percent of companies surveyed had profit margins lower than those in the same period of 2008.
The firms surveyed expect an improvement in business in the first half of 2010; however, of them 14 percent still expect a decline in production and 13.7 percent expect a drop in domestic sales, while 16 percent anticipate a weakening of foreign sales. Companies that predict a decline in their employee numbers were also recorded at 10.2 percent of the total.
