Business Confidence declined by six points to 39 in the second quarter of 2018 – after reaching 45 points in the first quarter of the year.<\/p>\n
This is according to the latest Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) business confidence index compiled by the Bureau for Economic Research.<\/p>\n
The BER takes the percentage of respondents that rates prevailing conditions as satisfactory as indicator or proxy of business confidence. The composite\u00a0RMB\/BER Business Confidence Index (BCI)<\/strong>\u00a0is the unweighted mean of five sectoral indices, namely that of manufactures, building contractors, retailers, wholesalers and new vehicle dealers.<\/p>\n Business confidence can vary between 0 and 100, where 0 indicates an extreme lack of confidence, 50 neutrality and 100 extreme confidence.<\/p>\n “After surging from 34 to 45 in the first quarter, the RMB\/BER Business Confidence Index (BCI) deteriorated to 39 in the second quarter of 2018,” RMB said.<\/p>\n “This means that close to three fifths of respondents now regard prevailing business conditions as unsatisfactory \u2013 a disappointing outcome, yet probably an accurate reflection of reality.”<\/p>\n However, RMB\u2019s chief economist, Ettienne Le Roux, said that the trend in business confidence remains upwards, even if only tentatively so, despite the second-quarter decline, reports Reuters<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Le Roux added that it was important that the political and policy factors currently weighing down on confidence were resolved.<\/p>\n First-quarter business confidence jumped 11 points, mainly because of the change in the country\u2019s political leadership in February, when Ramaphosa was elected.<\/p>\n But South Africa suffered its worst quarterly contraction in nine years in the first quarter. Gross domestic product shrank 2.2 percent, led by a slowdown in agriculture and mining, after expanding 3.1 percent in the final quarter of last year.<\/p>\n
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