The Government’s initiatives to stabilise the economy are bearing fruits with fuel and gas prices coming down, hope is also on the rise – especially among the corporate community.”
The World Bank is helping transform economic governance and increase public sector transparency, preventing past mistakes through strengthened fiscal oversight and debt management, and by tackling the sources of the heightened financial sector vulnerabilities.
And this foreign donor institution is helping Sri Lanka transition towards a more private sector-driven and outward-looking economy by supporting state owned enterprise SOE reforms, reducing the cost of trade, and making it easier for the private sector to invest.
The latest edition of LMD noted that “there’s been a turnaround in economic sentiment,” reporting on NielsenIQ’s monthly countrywide survey – for the exclusive LMD-NielsenIQ Business Confidence Index or BCI – published in the magazine’s May issue.
NielsenIQ Director – Consumer Insights Therica Miyanadeniya said, “As the country is beginning to stabilise, and with fuel and gas prices coming down, hope is also on the rise – especially among the corporate community.”
“Expectations for the future continue to pick up,” she noted, adding that both long and short-term perceptions among businesspeople have improved.”
According to LMD, “a somewhat healthy 34% of businesspeople spoken to by the pollsters expect the economy to ‘improve’ in the next 12 months, whereas only 17% said so in March.”
Likewise, only a third or so feel that the economy will ‘get worse’ during this time – in the prior month, a whopping 63% said so, LMD added.
“The disposition in corporate circles about projected sales volumes in the year ahead (i.e. the numbers will ‘get better’) has also improved from 37% in March to 55% a month later,” the magazine noted.
LMD also reported that less than a quarter (23%) feel that their sales numbers will ‘get worse’ in the 12 months ahead – versus nearly half (46%) a month ago.
However, the leading business magazine reported that perceptions about the investment climate remain weak: “The number of executives who believe that the investment landscape is ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ continues to be high – even though it has fallen from the eighth percentile to the seventh (i.e. from 89% in March to 79% a month later).
Media Services, LMD’s publisher, said the latest edition of the magazine has been released. Its digital edition is also available on WhatsApp and the publisher’s social media platforms.
The magazine’s Cover Story featured an exclusive interview with recently appointed Brandix Lanka Managing Director Hasitha Premaratne, who discussed the downturn in the apparel industry and the nation’s economic prospects.
