Services, Industrial Sectors To Boost Macro Economy, CBN Says
The business outlook for March 2020 showed greater confidence in the economy, with 58.1 index points, the Central Bank of Nigeria has said.
The major drivers of the optimism for March were services, industrial, wholesale/retail trade and construction sectors, the statistics department of the CBN disclosed this in its February 2020 Business Expectations Survey.
At 26.6 index points, the overall confidence index indicated respondents’ optimism on the overall macro economy in February.
The optimism on the macro economy in February was driven by the opinion of respondents from services (14.7 points), industrial (8.3 points), wholesale/retail trade (2.6 points) and construction (1.0 points) sectors.
Similarly, the major drivers of the optimism for next month were services (31.6 points), industrial (19.5 points), wholesale/retail trade (5.4 points) and construction (1.6 points) sectors.
Further analysis showed that businesses that were neither import- nor export-oriented (17.8 points), import-oriented (4.2 points), both import- and export-oriented (4.1 points), and those that are export-related (0.7 point) drove the positive business outlook in February 2020.
All sectors expressed optimism on own operations in the review month. Respondents from the services sector expressed the greatest optimism on own operations, with an index of 6.2 points, followed by the industrial sector with 5.3 points, the wholesale/retail trade with 1.4 points, while the construction sector had 0.2 point.
Respondents’ outlook on the volume of total order and business activity in February 2020 remained positive, at 19.0 and 18.5 points, respectively.
Similarly, the outlook on financial conditions (working capital) and average capacity utilisation remained positive as the indices stood at 13.1 and 19.9 index points, respectively.
Respondents were positive on their ability to access credit from the banks in the review month, as the index stood at 1.6 points.
Respondent firms’ opinions on the volume of business activities (64.1 points) and employment (30.0 points) indicated a favourable business outlook for the next month.
