BSP launches monthly business expectations survey 

THE  Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) released the results of the inaugural monthly Business Expectations Survey (BES), marking the start of a more frequent assessment of business sentiment in the Philippines.

The shift from a quarterly to a monthly survey will allow the BSP to monitor business confidence more closely and respond more effectively to rapidly changing domestic and external developments.

As with the Q4 2025 survey results, the January 2026 round continued to indicate that more businesses are optimistic about the economy than pessimistic, as the Confidence Index (CI) remained positive at 0.9 percent. 

This, however, was lower than 29.7 percent recorded in Q4 2025. Nonetheless, business sentiment showed signs of recovery as the three-month-ahead and the year-ahead CIs rose to 33.3 percent and 38.6 percent, respectively.

The continued positive outlook in January 2026 is supported by expectationsof higher consumer demand and enhancements in business processes. 

Meanwhile, stronger consumer demand and sales, improved domestic economic conditions, and more favorable investment prospects lifted business confidence for the next quarter and over the next 12 months.

The monthly BES uses the same sampling frame and questionnaire as the quarterly round, with only minor wording adjustments to the reference period.

Each monthly round now covers about 500 firms nationwide, or roughly one-thirdof the previous quarterly coverage of around 1,500 firms. The nationwide margin of error increases from about 3.0 percent to around 6.0 percent but remains within the acceptable 5.0-7.5 percent range for enterprise surveys.

The shift to a monthly conduct of BES aligns with the BSP’s broader efforts to enhance and expand its existing macroeconomic surveillance toolkit.