April 29, 2024 (MLN): The overall Business Confidence Index improved by 1.8 points to 53.5 in April 2024, the latest results of the 47th wave of the Business Confidence Survey (BCS), conducted by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in collaboration with the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), revealed.
It is pertinent to note that s increase is driven by the Services sector. The Services sector BCI increased by 2.6 points to 54.7.
On the other hand, the Industry sector BCI decreased slightly by 0.4 points to 49.9.
According to the survey report, the headline index “Overall Business Confidence” is comprised of two sub-indices; “Current Business Confidence Index (CBCI)” and “Expected Business Confidence Index (EBCI)”
Current Business Confidence
The Current Business Confidence Index (CBCI), which is based on the general economic conditions in the country over the past six months, increased by 2.4 points to 50.1 in April 2024 over the previous wave.
The Services sector contributed to this change with an increase of 3.4 points.
On the other hand, the CBCI of the Industry sector decreased slightly by 0.6 points to 45.5
The disaggregation of responses reveals a decrease in the negative views, while the positive and neutral views increased in the current wave.
Expected Business Confidence
As far as the expectations regarding economic and business conditions in the next six months are concerned, an increase was observed in the Expected Business Confidence Index (EBCI) in March, up by 1.2 points to 56.9.
The Services sector contributed for this change whose EBCI increased by 1.7 points to 57.8.
On the other hand, Industry sector EBCI decreased slightly by 0.2 points to 54.3.
The disaggregation of responses shows an increase in the positive views, while the negative and neutral views decreased in the current wave.
Purchasing Managers Index
The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) increased slightly by 0.2 points to 49.9 in the current wave from the previous wave.
It is worth mentioning here that the PMI was last seen in the positive zone in June 2022
The PMI’s disaggregation shows slight decrease in the indices of three out of five of its components.
A decrease of 0.2 points was observed in the total order booked and total number of employees followed by quantity of raw material purchases which decreased by 0.1 points.
The firms’ business activities remained same at 48.4. On the other hand, average supplier delivery times improved by 1.7 points in April 2024.
Inflation Expectations
Regarding inflation, the survey revealed that Inflation Expectations (IE) decreased by 3.3 points and reached to 66.1 in April 2024.
Both the Industry and the Services sectors contributed to the decrease in overall IE.
The Inflation Expectations of the Industry sector decreased by 4.7 points and that of the Services sector by 1.1 points
Employment
The survey also highlighted a drop in the Current Employment Index by 0.8 points to 50.1 in the current survey wave on account of both the Industry and the Services sector which decreased by 0.1 and 0.9 points respectively.
The overall Expected Employment Index increased slightly by 0.4 points to 55.9 in April 2024.
This change was driven by the Services sector which increased by 0.7 points.
On the other hand, the index for the Industry sector decreased slightly by 0.3 points in April 2024
Capacity Utilization
The Average Current Capacity Utilization (ACCU)1 of the manufacturing sector (within the Industry sector) decreased by 4.1 percent to 63.6% in April 2024.
Copyright Mettis Link News
Posted on: 2024-04-29T17:41:22+05:00
