Biz confidence nosedives to a 21-year low

“When 99% of business leaders fear for the investment climate and the national coffers are as empty as a starving person’s belly, and when the very bare necessities of life are not available and people are looking deprivation in the eye, we are reduced to the very least of ourselves,” says leading business magazine LMD. 

LMD’s July edition reports: “The LMD-NielsenIQ Business Confidence Index (BCI) has certainly stepped on a banana peel. It slipped 50 basis points to a dismal 49 in June – from 99 in May.   “The question is whether it will drop to or below the all-time low of 31 when parliament was prorogued in September 2001?” it adds – that was during the war, two months after the Central Bank bombing, which shook the nation in distress.

NielsenIQ’s Director – Consumer Insights Therica Miyanadeniya remarks: “The days ahead are undoubtedly dark with no light at the end of the tunnel. With the global economy also not faring well, with high inflation in almost all the countries, the country desperately needs a miracle.”

A spokesman for LMD says: “With a new budget ahead and more belt-tightening on the cards, it would be careless to believe that business confidence will recover lost ground soon.”

 “The dire prospect of a lack of bridging finance to tide us over until the IMF bailout hopefully comes into effect is making matters worse,” he adds.

Meanwhile, 88% of businesspeople surveyed say the economy will ‘get worse’ – and the long and short-term expectations of their sales volumes improving have declined sharply, LMD notes.

Media Services, which publishes LMD, says the latest edition of the pioneering magazine will be released shortly, along with its digital version which will be shared on WhatsApp and the publisher’s social media platforms (for the full BCI report, visit www.LMD.lk).