The Turkish government has introduced its latest round of increase in the price of natural gas, a 14.97 percent rise for residences and 13.73 percent for industrial sites.
Turkey’s Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) revealed in a statement that the new changes went into effect on August 1.
BOTAS hiked the gas prices by 9 percent for residences and 14 percent for industrial sites in August and September of 2018, then applied the third increase in October last year - 9 percent for residences and 18.5 percent for industrial sites.
The Turkish government changed the prices of gas sold to stations in June by 6.5 percent. It announced that the hike won’t cover consumers in homes, factories, and commercial units.
Last week, Turkey’s Chamber of Electrical Engineers (EMO) announced that energy prices have increased by more than 300 percent in the last 17 years.
Experts believe the coming period will likely witness new increases in prices of various products whether in the public or private sectors due to the rise in production costs and the continued growth of the budget deficit.
In a related matter, Turkey's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector stood at 46.7 points in July, according to a monthly business survey released on August 1.
The Istanbul Chamber of Industry report, conducted in cooperation with London-based global data firm IHS Markit, showed that the PMI dropped slightly last month, versus an 11-month high index value of 47.9 points in June.
"Total new orders continued to soften amid challenging market conditions, particularly domestically. This was despite the stability of new export orders, which followed an expansion in the previous month," it said.
The PMI survey data showed that the relatively positive picture around exports encouraged some manufacturers to raise their output during July. "As a result, the pace of moderation in production softened to the weakest since March," it added.
Moreover, Emirates NBD completed the acquisition of Turkey’s Denizbank from Russian lender Sberbank. The new agreement is worth TRY15.5 billion (USD2.8 billion).
