Survey: Insufficient Power, Others Constraining Businesses in August
The August 2019 Business Expectations Survey (BES) has identified insufficient power supply (65.9 points), high interest rate (56.5 points), financial problems (53.7 points) and unfavourable economic climate (53.5 points), as major factors constrained businesses in the month under review.
It also identified unclear economic laws (50.8 points), unfavourable political climate (47 points), insufficient demand (46 points), access to credit (45.6 points) and competition (43 points), respectively, as other challenges that constrained business activities in the month under review.
The August 2019 BES was conducted from August 12-21, 2019, with a sample size of 1050 businesses nationwide. A response rate of 95.4 per cent was achieved, and the sample covered the services, industrial, wholesale/retail trade, and construction sectors.
The respondent firms were made up of small, medium and large corporations covering both import- and export-oriented businesses.
According to the report, at 28.6 index points, respondents expressed optimism on the overall confidence index (CI) on the macro economy in the month of August 2019.
The report stated that the business outlook for September 2019, showed greater confidence on the macro economy with 64.7 index points.
“The optimism on the macro economy in the current month was driven by the opinion of respondents from services (15.4 points), industrial (10.1 points), wholesale/retail trade (2.4 points) and construction (0.7 points) sectors.
“For next month, the major drivers of the optimism were services (36.1points), industrial (20.7 points), wholesale/retail trade (6.0 points) and construction (1.9 points) sectors.
“The positive outlook by type of business in August 2019 were driven by businesses that are neither import- nor exportoriented (21.0 points), both import- and export-oriented (4.3 points), import-oriented (2.9 points), and those that are export-related (0.3 points),” the report stated.
According to the report, all sectors expressed optimism on own operations in the review month.
It stated that respondents from the services sector expressed the greatest optimism, “on own operation with an index of 7.9 points, followed by the industrial sector with 1.7 points, the wholesale/retail trade with 1.3 points and the construction sector with 0.2 points, respectively.”
“Respondents’ outlook on the volume of total order and business activity in August 2019 remained positive, as their indices stood at 12.7 and 14.3 points, respectively.