Business Confidence Surges in February

• Business Confidence Surges in February

Business managers and experts are projecting better business activities and growth for the month of February.

In a business expectations report released by the Central Bank of Nigeria for the month of January, the 1050 businesses surveyed were confidence the economic outlook will improve in the month of January, up from th 28.3 index points filed in January to 61.4 points in February.

A breakdown of the report shows respondents expected the industrial sector to grow from 9.0 points in January to 20 points, while the construction sector is projected to expand at 1.8 points in the month of February, up from 0.5 points in January.

Accordingly, the retail sector should grow from 2.6 points in January to 4.5 points. Services Sector, the powerhouse of the economy, was predicted to grow at 35.1 from the 16.1 achieved in January.

While businesses expressed optimism on own operations in January, businesses in the services sector, however, expressed the greatest optimism on business activities at 8.1 points.

Followed by 4.6 points from the industrial sector, 1.7 points from the wholesale/retail sector and 0,3 point from the construction sector.

Despite economic uncertainty and dropped in global oil prices, respondents were positive demand and business activity will remain positive at 15.2 and 16.4 points, respectively.

On access to credit facility, respondents were positive on their ability to access credit from banks in January. Also, they remained optimistic on job creation for the month of February with industrial sector coming first with 30.9 points, services sector came second with 30.3 points, wholesale/retail sector 27.3 points and construction sector came last with 27.3 points.