Gov’t readies series of business polls

The government has set a series of business confidence surveys in 2012 to keep track of near-term conditions that could spur investments and boost the economy, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) said Friday.

In a statement, the NSCB said it had approved next year’s round of the Business Expectations Survey (BES) under the Statistical Survey Review and Clearance System.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas will conduct the BES on 1,600 firms in January, April, July and October 2012, it said.

Sample firms will come from industry (manufacturing), construction, services, and wholesale and retail trade sectors included in the Top 7,000 corporations of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

NSCB secretary-general Romulo A. Virola said the survey series would provide stakeholders indicators that could influence gross domestic product, interest rates, peso/dollar exchange rates, and inflation rates. Such information would guide stakeholders on short-term planning, forecasting and risk management.

Aside from the overall business outlook, the BSP will collect data on volume of business activity, export and import orders, selling price, stocks, capital expenditures, net income, business conditions financial conditions, access to credit, capacity utilization and number of employees. The central bank will also gather information on so-called limiting factors to increased business activity as well as firms’ outlook on business activity, business conditions, selling price, number of people employed and expansion. Expectations on economic indicators such as exchange rate, inflation rate and interest rate will also be collected, the NSCB said.