The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Consumers remain generally pessimistic, but the negative views are subsiding with the confidence index (CI) in a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Consumer Expectation Survey (CES) improving in the final quarter to a net negative 8.1 percent from a net negative 11.6 percent a year ago.
The CI is computed as the percentage of households that answered in the affirmative less the percentage of households that answered in the negative with respect to their views on a given indicator. The negative CI means that pessimism continues to dominate among the respondents.
The overall consumer CI measures the average direction of change in three indicators—overall condition of the economy, household finances, and household income.
According to respondents, the reduced pessimism during the period was due to expectations of more jobs and increase in the number of working family members; additional income/higher salary given the receipt of Christmas bonus and 13th month pay; stable prices of commodities; effective government policies; improvements in infrastructure; and brisker business activity leading to higher household income.
For the first quarter of next year, consumers’ optimism was sustained as the CI was broadly steady at 5.7 percent, compared with the previous quarter’s survey results, indicating the optimists continued to top the pessimists for the next quarter.
Consumers’ sentiment was more favorable for the next 12 months, with the CI increasing to 18 percent from 15.8 percent a quarter ago.
Consumers anticipated lower unemployment, improvements in the country’s economy and the election of new government officials in the year ahead.