Friday Sep 20, 2024
Friday Sep 20, 2024
Friday, 5 December 2014 00:24 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Business magazine LMD’s December edition notes that business confidence has risen dramatically to reach a 20-month high, saying: “The LMD-Nielsen Business Confidence Index (BCI) makes a double-digit leap, rising by 15 basis points (to 143), in November.”
“Not only does this reflect a reversal of the negative sentiment we’ve seen over the past three months; it also marks a 20-month high, in addition to being a notable 16 notches higher than the all-time average of 127,” it adds.
Nielsen’s Managing Director Shaheen Cader says in LMD that the firm’s retail audit data bears testimony to this in the last quarter: “FMCG volumes have shown a 10% increase, compared to the same quarter a year ago – on top of low, single-digit volume increases in the previous three quarters.”
There’s also been “a slight change in terms of how respondents view the prevailing investment climate,” LMD observes.
LMD says that Budget 2015 “has, by and large, been hailed by the business community. The slew of election and citizen-friendly proposals appear to have boosted consumer sentiment which, in turn, has propped up business confidence.”
A spokesperson for LMD, speaking exclusively to the Daily FT, notes: “Disposable incomes and prices have become the yardsticks by which businesses measure success – this comes out very clearly in Nielsen’s exclusive month poll for LMD.”
“The bottom line is that higher consumer spending and an uptick in optimism over the future of the economy have propped the BCI… but we expect a reversal next month, given the uncertainty that lies ahead of the presidential election,” he adds.
Media Services, the publisher of LMD, says that the magazine will be released to bookstores and supermarkets on Friday 5 December. (For the full BCI report go to www.lmd.lk)
