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Indexes

Business Confidence Index: winter is coming!
13 November 2018

BCI in the fourth quarter of 2018 has worsened, dropping to 29.9 index points, which is a 5.5 index point loss over the previous quarter. The BCI drop is based on the worsening of past performance and expectations in many business sectors. Compared to other sectors, manufacturing and agriculture assessed their past performance and expectations the most pessimistically. In contrast, the retail trade sector is the most positive.

The Past Performance Index, which reflects businesses' assessment of their own economic performance in the previous quarter, showed a downward trend, decreasing by 10.2 points in Q4 2018.

Business optimism about the overall economy decreased significantly, reaching 50.1 index points. Other than manufacturing, the financial sectors and agriculture have contributed the most to this decrease in business optimism.

The Sales Price Expectation Index increased moderately and is standing higher than last year's expectations. Businesses in the service and retail trade sectors predict high price increases in the next quarter.

Expectations and past performance worsened for large businesses and improved for SMEs.

For large-sized firms, the main factors that continue to limit business activities are access to finance, labor force, while SMEs chose access to finance and lack of demand as the main limiting factors for further business development.

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