Turkey's manufacturing industry is shrinking amid the ongoing global financial crisis, local newspaper Today's Zaman reported on Thursday.

The manufacturing industry is losing ground due to economic crisis, said the report, citing data released on Wednesday by Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat).

According to the main indices of manufacturing industry collected by TurkStat, the index of the number of workers in manufacturing industry decreased to 85 in the third quarter of 2008 from 87.1 in the same period of last year.

At the same time, the index of working hours in manufacturing industry also declined to 81.9 from 84.7.

Meanwhile, the number of workers in manufacturing industry decreased by 7.3 percent in public sector while the number was down by 2.1 percent in private sector, said the report.

In addition, the number of working hours in manufacturing industry decreased by 5.8 percent in public sector and 3.1 percent in private sector, it added.

(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2008)