Istanbul - TurkStat yesterday released its Industrial Production Index for January. According to the data, seasonal and calendar adjusted industrial production increased by 1.1 percent compared with the previous month.

In the subsectors of the industry (based on 2010=100), the mining and quarrying index increased by 3.9 percent and manufacturing index increased by 1.3 percent. The electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply indexes decreased by 1.9 percent in January 2014, compared with the previous month.

Data released by TurkStat suggests that calendar-adjusted industrial production increased by 7.3 percent compared with the same month last year.

In the subsectors of the industry (based on 2010=100), while the mining and quarrying index increased by 9.4 percent since January 2013, the manufacturing index increased by 7.8 percent. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply index increased by 3.5 percent during the same period.

According to the Main Industrial Groupings classification, the largest increase was in intermediate goods by 3.4 percent in January of 2014, compared with the previous month. "The value of the index is surprisingly high" said Economist Erhan Aslanoğlu. He noted that export demand in some sectors like textiles, leather and intermediate goods accelerated production. "Domestic demand also had a positive effect on IPI, but I think we will be faced with a current account deficit in the near term," he added.