The utilization rate is now up year-on-year to 73.4 percent, though it was down by 1.3 points compared to last month, the bank said in its economic tendency survey, conducted among 1,903 enterprises operating in the manufacturing sector. The capacity utilization rate is considered one of the leading indicators of a country’s economic performance. The trend of higher rates seen this year compared to 2009 indicates rapid economic recovery from the limited impact of the global financial crisis on Turkey.
After the rate was announced, Industry and Trade Minister Nihat Ergün issued a written statement and noted that the slight reduction this month compared to July was only due to companies in certain sectors decreasing their production levels due to high temperatures.
“What is important is that it has increased by 5.2 points over Aug. 2009, because this figure indicates that the process of growth in Turkey is continuing and that we are recovering from the effects of 2009,” Ergün said, emphasizing that they expect the increasing trend to continue and bring Turkey closer to pre-crisis capacity utilization rates, which were around 75 and 80 percent.
In his statement he also pointed out that Turkey has outpaced most developed economies in the world in terms of recovering from the crisis. In that regard, he noted that one of the most difficult issues to tackle after a crisis is unemployment but that Turkey made great strides there, too. According to the most recent data, the jobless rate in Turkey decreased by 2.6 percent in May to 11 percent compared to the same month last year. The number of unemployed people in the country fell below 3 million for the first time since Nov. 2008.
