Turkish consumers confidence index down in August

The consumer confidence index (CCI) in Turkey dropped 1.6 percent in August 2013 compared to July 2013, the country's statistics authority said. According to a joint survey conducted by TurkStat and the Turkish Central Bank, the CCI, which was 78.5 in July 2013, dropped to 77.2 in August 2013. Consumers' probability of saving over the next 12 months decreased to 25.8 in August while it was recorded at 28.7 over the previous month, marking a 10.4 percent drop. TurkStat said the household financial expectation for the next 12 months dropped 1.3 percent compared to the previous month to 93.1 in August. The index of general financial expectation in the next 12 months decreased by 2 percent in August to 103 from 102 in July, meaning the number of consumers expecting a better financial situation over the next 12 months has decreased compared to the previous month. TurkStat said that the expectation index for the unemployed over the next 12 months increased by 1.2 percent to 86.8 in August from 85.7 in July. This rise stemmed from the decrease in the ratio of people expecting an increase in the number of unemployed persons. CCI is an indicator designed to measure consumer confidence, which is defined as the degree of optimism on the state of the economy that consumers are expressing through their activities of savings and spending. The index has a range from 0 to 200. If the index gets a value greater than 100, this implies that the rate of optimists is more than the rate of pessimists. Similarly, if the index gets a value less than 100, the rate of pessimists is more than the rate of optimists.