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April 16. 2007. GKI composite index
Expectations improved
In March 2007, the seasonally adjusted GKI economic sentiment index increased slightly. According to the survey of GKI Economic Research Co. (www.gki.hu)-supported by the European Union-both business and consumer expectations improved. The size of the changes is not significant, in fact, stagnation that started last August has been continuing with certain fluctuation.
For nearly a year business expectations have not been as optimistic as now. The expectations of industrial companies hardly improved in March. In spite of this, it is on a peak never seen for several years. The assessment of the conditions of production concerning both the past few months and the near future did not change basically, that of booked orders improved somewhat, whereas the evaluation of export orders and the stock of own products remained unchanged. It is a positive sign that more companies planned to increase employment than to reduce it.
In construction, expectations have been stagnating at a rather low level for several months, they deteriorated somewhat in March. Nevertheless, the assessment of the conditions of production improved further, but that of booked order did not change and employment plans became a little restrained.
The trade confidence index increased sharply. Respondents were especially optimistic concerning their sales positions. Their evaluation concerning their stocks of goods and orders was similar.
Expectations in the service sector improved as well. Respondents perceived their business position as well as the projection of sales and employment more positively than one month before. (Nevertheless, the index declined sharply in February.)
Efforts aimed at raising prices weakened in each industry. In export-oriented branches, respondents anticipated the decrease of prices. The opinion on the outlook of the Hungarian economy improved in trade and services, and it remained unchanged in the other industries, but pessimists continue to be in absolute majority. Since the end of last summer, inflationary expectations of households weakened. The opinion of consumers concerning the state of the Hungarian economy, too, improved somewhat.
Following its precipitous drop in May-July 2006 and the subsequent moderate deterioration, GKI's consumer confidence index hit 12 year bottom this January. It stagnated in February and was up somewhat in March when the expectations of households concerning their own financial situation and savings opportunities became a bit more upbeat compared to the previous month. Their expectations concerning employment did not change at all. Nevertheless, households evaluated the present purchase possibilities of consumer durable goods slightly more negatively.
Explanation to the methodology:
GKI Economic Research Co., in accordance with the methodology used by the EU, takes into account the expectations of industry, trade, construction and service sectors when calculates the economic confidence index. (In the service sector - like in the practice of the EU - for the time being the firms of the financial and public sectors do not appear among the surveyed companies.) GKI publishes seasonally adjusted data by using appropriate mathematical methods to filter out the discrepancies caused by seasonal impacts (e.g. weather differences between winter and summer, increased demand before Christmas, lower output because of summer vacations).
The consumer confidence index is calculated from the responses to questions concerning the actual and the expected financial position of households, the actual and the expected economic situation of the country, and the purchase of higher value consumer durables.
The business confidence index is calculated from the responses of enterprises in industry, trade, construction and service sectors to questions concerning the course of business and expectations. The history of the subindex that reflects the expectations of the service sector is shorter than that of other sectors: this kind of surveys started in 1998. Therefore the business confidence index for 1996-97 had to be recalculated. This was made using the mathematical correlation among the confidence indices of various sectors in the period after 1998.
The GKI economic confidence index is the weighted average of the consumer confidence index and the business confidence index.
GKI Composite Index and its components, 1996-2007
Source: surveys of GKI Co.
|
| | 1996. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -45.1 | -48.8 | -45.9 | -44.8 | -50.5 | -51.5 | -46.8 | -41.9 | -42.8 | -40.0 | -34.9 | -39.6 |
| Business confidence | -7.8 | -3.9 | -6.6 | -7.1 | -6.8 | -9.4 | -9.8 | -7.0 | -5.4 | -3.1 | -3.8 | -5.0 |
| GKI-composite index | -17.5 | -15.6 | -16.8 | -16.9 | -18.2 | -20.4 | -19.4 | -16.1 | -15.2 | -12.7 | -11.9 | -14.0 |
| |
| | 1997. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -40.0 | -41.1 | -39.1 | -41.6 | -39.4 | -34.7 | -33.8 | -30.3 | -25.6 | -27.2 | -23.0 | -26.1 |
| Business confidence | -5.5 | -4.8 | -1.7 | -2.1 | -0.3 | 1.4 | 1.0 | 2.7 | 3.3 | 5.9 | 6.1 | 5.7 |
| GKI-composite index | -14.5 | -14.2 | -11.4 | -12.4 | -10.5 | -8.0 | -8.1 | -5.9 | -4.2 | -2.7 | -1.4 | -2.5 |
| |
| | 1998. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -22.0 | -19.0 | -15.6 | -18.6 | -19.9 | -10.4 | -8.2 | -9.8 | -14.1 | -13.9 | -16.3 | -22.7 |
| Business confidence | 5.0 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 5.5 | 4.9 | 3.7 | 2.2 | -0.9 | -2.6 | -8.9 | -9.6 | -8.9 |
| GKI-composite index | -2.0 | -1.6 | -0.6 | -0.8 | -1.6 | 0.1 | -0.5 | -3.2 | -5.6 | -10.2 | -11.3 | -12.5 |
| |
| | 1999. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -22.0 | -19.7 | -22.8 | -28.5 | -29.6 | -28.9 | -35.5 | -32.9 | -30.4 | -27.1 | -25.5 | -29.9 |
| Business confidence | -8.3 | -12.6 | -11.9 | -12.7 | -14.8 | -10.3 | -6.7 | -7.8 | -7.3 | -5.7 | -4.7 | -3.1 |
| GKI-composite index | -11.8 | -14.4 | -14.7 | -16.8 | -18.6 | -15.1 | -14.2 | -14.4 | -13.3 | -11.2 | -10.1 | -10.1 |
| |
| | 2000. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -25.9 | -28.1 | -29.2 | -31.2 | -28.9 | -30.9 | -33.0 | -30.4 | -32.6 | -29.6 | -30.7 | -26.6 |
| Business confidence | -5.6 | -4.3 | -5.2 | -0.8 | 0.2 | -0.9 | 1.1 | -0.1 | -2.1 | -0.9 | 0.6 | -1.5 |
| GKI-composite index | -10.9 | -10.5 | -11.4 | -8.7 | -7.4 | -8.7 | -7.7 | -8.0 | -10.1 | -8.3 | -7.5 | -8.0 |
| |
| | 2001. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -25.2 | -23.2 | -23.4 | -20.9 | -21.2 | -22.0 | -19.9 | -20.9 | -20.7 | -19.3 | -16.6 | -15.1 |
| Business confidence | -1.4 | -1.7 | 1.8 | -0.4 | -2.8 | -3.1 | -7.1 | -5.3 | -7.5 | -9.1 | -11.0 | -10.9 |
| GKI-composite index | -7.6 | -7.3 | -4.8 | -5.7 | -7.6 | -8.0 | -10.5 | -9.3 | -10.9 | -11.7 | -12.4 | -12.0 |
| |
| | 2002. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -15.6 | -13,9 | -5,4 | -0,6 | -2,1 | -1,8 | -1,3 | 0,5 | -3,5 | -3,5 | -8,7 | -7,8 |
| Business confidence | -10.1 | -6,9 | -4,3 | -9,3 | -4,7 | -6,2 | -6,2 | -4,4 | -6,9 | -4,9 | -6,4 | -7,1 |
| GKI-composite index | -11.5 | -8,7 | -4,6 | -7,0 | -4,1 | -5,2 | -4,9 | -3,1 | -6,0 | -4,5 | -7,0 | -7,3 |
| |
| | 2003. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -12,2 | -21,9 | -22,5 | -19,2 | -21,4 | -23,5 | -25,1 | -32,7 | -32,4 | -32,3 | -31.0 | -31.1 |
| Business confidence | -12,0 | -11,0 | -13,1 | -11,4 | -8,4 | -13,4 | -10,2 | -9,3 | -11,0; | -9,8 | -5.3 | -5.3 |
| GKI-composite index | -12,1 | -13,8 | -15,5 | -13,4 | -11,8 | -16,0 | -14,1 | -15,4 | -16,6 | -15,7 | -12.0 | -12.0 |
| |
| | 2004. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -34.6 | -34.9 | -35.5 | -33.8 | -29.1 | -26.0 | -26.7 | -27.7 | -25.8 | -26,5 | -26,1 | -24,3 |
| Business confidence | -8.6 | -9.9 | -7.3 | -2.9 | -7.0 | -4.3 | -7.8 | -6.1 | -7.0 | -11,7 | -16,4 | -14,5 |
| GKI-composite index | -15.4 | -16.4 | -14.6 | -10.9 | -12.7 | -9.9 | -12.7 | -11.7 | -11.9 | -15,5 | -18,9 | -17,0 |
| |
| | 2005. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -21.7 | -22.5 | -26,0 | -30,9 | -32,7 | -35,2 | -28.9 | -27,8 | -26,1 | -27,8 | -23,4 | -18,7 |
| Business confidence | -12.7 | -16.1 | -17,4 | -17,0 | -17,4 | -17,0 | -14.2 | -15,2 | -8,8 | -9,3 | -8,5 | -8,5 |
| GKI-composite index | -15.0 | -17.8 | -19,6 | -20,6 | -21,4 | -21,7 | -18.0 | -18,5 | -13,3 | -14,1 | -12,4 | -11,2 |
| |
| | 2006. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -16,3 | -10,3 | -11.8 | -10,5 | -24,4 | -43.3 | -48,2 | -46.9 | -51,1 | -49,0 | -51.8 | -52.9 |
| Business confidence | -8,6 | -9,4 | -5,4 | -3,7 | -2,2 | -4.4 | -5,8 | -8.8 | -4,2 | -7,3 | -6.7 | -9.7 |
| GKI-composite index | -10,6 | -9,6 | -7.1 | -5,5 | -8,0 | -14.5 | -16,8 | -18.7 | -16,4 | -18,1 | -18.4 | -21.0 |
| |
| | 2007. |
|---|
| | I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. | IX. | X. | XI. | XII. |
| Consumer confidence | -53,5 | -53.7 | -51,9 | | | | | | | | | |
| Business confidence | -7,9 | -5.8 | -2,9 | | | | | | | | | |
| GKI-composite index | -19,8 | -18.2 | -15,6 | | | | | | | | | |
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