ELEVATED inflation and peso depreciation, among others, dampened sentiments of both the consumers and businesses in the last quarter of 2022.
In a briefing on Friday, Senior Director Redentor Paolo Alegre Jr., of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Department of Economic Statistics (DES), said confidence index (CI) for the current quarter’s consumer expectation survey (CES) slipped further to -14.6 percent from quarter-ago’s -12.9 percent.
By component indicator, results of the CES, done last October 1-13, showed that index for economic condition slipped further to -22 percent and the family income to -7.4 percent while the family financial situation improved to -14.3 percent.
In terms of economic indicators, the consumer-respondents consider improvement in the inflation and interest rate but sees further weakening of the peso against the US dollar and unemployment rate. All these are for the indicators for the current quarter and the next 12 months.
Alegre said the weaker consumer confidence in the country during the quarter is similar to those in Australia, South Korea and Taiwan.
Relatively, CI for the business expectations survey (BES) declined for the second consecutive quarter to 23.9 percent from 26.1 percent in the previous three months.
The drop was traced to higher inflation, peso depreciation, decline in sales and demand, and rising cost of production inputs.
BES respondents see depreciation of the peso against the US dollar and the peso borrowing rate and inflation to further rise until the next 12 months.
Results of the survey show that respondents expect inflation to breach the government’s 2-4 percent target band until next year.
The respondents forecast inflation to average at 6.2 percent this quarter, 6.1 percent for the next quarter, and 5.9 percent for the next 12 months. (PNA)
