Consumer Confidence improves marginally in July'19

July 22, 2019 (MLN): July 2019’s Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) remained largely flat according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), improving marginally by 0.66%, whereas Overall Inflation Expectations decreased by 1.49% compared to the previous survey conducted in May2019.

A CCI measures how optimistic of pessimistic consumers are with their views on economy in the present and near future. The basic concept is that if the consumers are optimistic, the consumption will rise in the near future and vice versa.

This shift in consumption is one of the key movers of the economy. A CCI reflects consumers’ perceptions of present and future business and employment condition.

The latest wave of Consumer Confidence Survey (CCS) i.e. July 2019 was the 46^th wave of survey since inception in which 1,721 households were surveyed in total.

As per SBP, the latest change in CCI can be attributed to deterioration in the current economic conditions index (CEC), which decreased by 1.2 percent while the expected economic conditions index (EEC) recorded an increase of 2.3 percent from its value in the previous survey.

Inflation indices constructed from the survey data continued to show persistently high expected inflation though the index was slightly lower than the previous wave in May2019.

*Note: All the tables and charts used in this article are a courtesy of SBP's Consumer Confidence Survey Report for July 2019.

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