Businesses more confident now about economic recovery: Sanem survey

Businesses are more confident about recovery in the current July-September 2021 period than the previous quarter owing to the relaxation of countrywide lockdown, according to the Business Confidence Survey of the South Asian Network for Economic Model (Sanem).

Measured on a scale of 0 to 100, Sanem said Business Confidence Index (BCI) improved to 49.74 in July-September period of this year from 41.39 in April-June period.

"The improvement is visible for all of the sub-components. This improvement in business confidence shows a hope to revive the private sector," said Sanem Executive Director Selim Raihan while he was sharing the findings of the latest survey.

This was the fifth round of the survey, which Sanem carried in July 2021 on 501 firms nationwide. The research organisation has been conducting the survey since July 2020 to track the situation of economy and sentiment of businesses.

Sanem said the fourth round of survey in April this year exposed a deterioration of business confidence followed by the second wave of Covid-19. 

"This round of survey provides insights on the pulse of the economy as the economy transits through the second wave of the pandemic," it said.

Despite improvement from the previous quarter, overall confidence among business is still below the July-September period of 2020, when BCI was 51.06, which indicates that recovery process of the economy is slow.

"Recovery process is disrupted and there is still uncertainty," said Raihan.

Sanem said 64 per cent of respondents termed the recovery of economy weak while 27 per cent considered it as moderate, and only 9 per cent opined that economy had been on the path of a strong recovery.

Foreign remittances, export of goods and services, banks' credit to the private sector and vaccination programmes amongst others are major factors that are contributing to the overall economic recovery, said the research organisation.