By Joann S. Villanueva
MANILA, Dec. 4 (PNA) — The Christmas season and election-related spending boosted businessmen’s outlook resulting to the two-year high overall business expectation survey (BES) confidence index (CI) in the last quarter of 2015.
In a briefing, Rosabel Guerrero, Director of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Department of Economic Statistics (DES), said the index went up to 51.3 percent from 41.4 percent in the previous quarter.
Other factors that boosted the index are higher sales, orders and projects in line with the seasonal demand, expansion of businesses and new product lines, higher inflows of remittances, and introduction of new and enhanced business strategies.
Guerrero said the country’s hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) along with increase in government spending boosted businesses’ expectations for brisker operations.
The low inflation and low interest rate environment and good macroeconomic were also factors in the rise in the index.
Guerrero said the positive business outlook in the country is similar to that of Australia, Japan and the Euro Area during the same period but is contrary to that of US, UK, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Russia, Indonesia, Singapore, and India.
For the first quarter of 2016, the index turned less optimistic at 43.9 percent from the previous survey’s 53.1 percent and this was attributed to seasonal drop of demand after the Christmas season. (PNA)