Turkey’s industrial production increased for an eleventh-straight month in March, the longest period of expansion in a decade.
Output rose by 0.7 percent compared with February, the Turkish Statistical Institute said on Tuesday.
Turkey’s government has sought to keep key industries working at full capacity even after it imposed measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Last month, it tightened restrictions on the population, temporarily shuttering non-essential businesses, but allowed manufacturers to remain open.
Production had registered 12 successive months of growth in the period ending January 2011, the data showed.
Output surged by 16.6 percent in March from the same month a year earlier when Turkey reported its first case of the COVID-19 virus and shut down many businesses. That was the biggest increase since August 2011.
Turkish retail sales grew by 5.1 percent month-on-month in March, the institute said in a separate statement, the largest expansion since July.
Sales surged by 19.2 percent compared with March last year, the biggest uptick since records began in 2011, the data showed.
Ahval