Tony Chukwunyem 
A survey by the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) has shown that firms were pessimistic about the economy in November.
According to the apex bank’s “November 2020 Business Expectations Survey Report,” released at the weekend, the pessimism on the macro economy was driven by the opinion of respondents from agric./services (-1.2 points), construction (-0.6 points) and wholesale/retail trade sectors (-0.3 points).
The report stated: “At -1.5 index points, the overall Confidence Index (CI) on the macro economy was pessimistic in November 2020. However, respondents are optimistic in their outlook for the month of December with a confidence index of 38.8. They also expressed optimism in the overall business outlook for January and May 2021 as shown in a greater confidence of the economy at 47.1 and 59.3 index points, respectively.
“The pessimism on the macro economy in the current month(November) was driven by the opinion of respondents from agric./services (-1.2 points), construction (-0.6 points) and wholesale/retail trade sectors (-0.3 points). The major drivers of optimism for next month were agric./services (23.1 points) and manufacturing sectors (11.3 points) . Further analysis revealed that businesses that are neither import nor export-oriented (-2.1 points) and both import and exporter-oriented (-0.4 points), drove the negative business outlook for the month under review.”
However, the report showed that firms from all the sectors of the economy expressed optimism on own operations in the review month with confidence index of 4.4, 2.2, 0.5 and 0.4 for agric./services, manufacturing, construction and wholesale/retail trade sectors, respectively.
Similarly, the report indicates that firms’ outlook on volume of total order, volume of business activity, average capacity utilization and financial condition (working capital) were positive at 9.0, 47.1, 12.2 and 7.6 index points, respectively, in November 2020.
On employment and expansion plans, the report shows that respondent firms have a favourable business outlook on the volume of business activities for December 2020 and January 2021.
Equally, businesses also hope to employ in December 2020 and January 2021 as the outlook was positive at 19.1 and 22.3 index points, respectively.
Specifically, the report showed that the wholesale/retail trade sector with (22.4 points) has the highest prospect for employment in the next month, followed by Agric/services sector with an index of 21.7 points, construction (16.2 points) and manufacturing sector (14.3 points).
