Consumers still optimistic
Optimistic consumers outnumbered pessimists for the third straight quarter during the first three months of the year on the back of sustained economic growth and improved peace and order in the country, results of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ latest consumer expectations survey showed.
While the overall confidence index (CI) in the first quarter slightly declined to 8.7 percent from the record high 9.7 percent during the fourth quarter of last year, it remained the second highest CI since the nationwide survey started a decade ago, the BSP noted in a statement.
The positive CI meant there were more optimists than pessimistic consumers. The CIs were negative prior to the third quarter of 2016 or the first three months of the Duterte administration. This means the CI remained positive for the first nine months of the Duterte government.
Teresita B. Deveza, deputy director at the BSP’s department of economic statistics, attributed the positive consumer confidence to the following: Improvements in the peace and order situation; additional family income due to higher salary and stronger business activity; availability of more jobs and increase in the number of employed family members, and effective government policies.
But Deveza said consumers were concerned about higher prices of basic goods and other household expenditures, poor harvest of agricultural products as well as bad weather.
For the second quarter, consumers were less optimistic as the CI decreased to 16.5 percent compared with 18.8 percent in the previous quarter.
For the year ahead, the CI also slid to 31.7 percent from the 33.4 percent recorded during the last three months of last year.
“Respondents’ less favorable outlook for the next quarter and the year ahead emanated from households’ concerns about higher prices of goods, depreciation of the peso, poor harvest due to bad weather conditions and slowdown in business activity,” Deveza said.
The peso fell to more than 10-year lows and has stayed at the 50:$1 level since February.
