By: Staff Writer
Colombo (LNW): Sri Lanka corporate sector Chief Executive officers (CEO) have expressed mixed sentiment on the economic revival in the island nation predicting that the expectations for the future have begun to pick up slowly.
49% of the CEOs surveyed were of the opinion that the local economy will decline in 2023, which is a notable drop in comparison to the 69% from last year MTI economic outlook 2023 survey revealed.
An equal percentage is hopeful that the economy will stabilize, which is also a significant increase compared to the 29% from the survey responses last year.
However, only 2% of the CEOs were of the opinion that the economy will accelerate, which is even lower than the responses from last year – a declining trend that has been continuing in the most recent years.
56% of the surveyed CEOs have identified Political, Legal and Governance issues as the number one challenge to the Sri Lankan economy this year, followed by Economic Policies (24%).
The April edition of leading business magazine LMD notes that there are “mixed feelings about the economy in corporate circles.”
However, NielsenIQ’s Director – Consumer Insights Therica Miyanadeniya says in the magazine that “expectations for the future have begun to pick up slowly.”
According to LMD, 17% of the business people interviewed by NielsenIQ’s pollsters in early March said they expect the economy to ‘improve’ – compared to only 7% a month ago.
“Those who said the economy is going to ‘get worse’ have also come down to 63%, from the 77% who said so in February,” Miyanadeniya points out.
And a fifth of the survey sample believe that the status quo will remain over the next 12 months, LMD notes.
On a more positive note, the magazine reports: “The disposition in corporate circles about projected sales volumes in the year ahead (i.e. that the numbers will ‘get better’) has improved from less than three-in-10 (29%) in February to a somewhat healthier 37% a month later.”
“Executive opinion with regard to sales volumes compared to the same time last year reflects a slight improvement with 17% – compared to 12% in March and February respectively – affirming an increase in numbers,” it adds.
As for the short-term forecast, LMD says that there’s been an improvement in sentiment with a fifth (versus 15% in February) expecting business volumes to ‘get better’ in the next three months – and the percentage of those who expect a worsening has edged down from 48% in February to 45% a month later.
Sri Lanka’s economic confidence was around the same levels in February 2023 as in October 2022, while government approval was also unchanged at a 10 percent level, a survey has found.
A “Mood of the Nation” poll was conducted in early February 2023 by Verité Research, a Colombo-based think tank among a sample of 1,000 respondents found that economic confidence was a negative -78, the same as October 2022, when it recovered from June low.
In February 2023 0.3 percent had rated the economic conditions as excellent, 6.0 percent rate it as good; and 6.3 percent had rated it as getting better.
