Korea: Business confidence for February declines to one-year low on lower sales and demand perspectives
The Bank of Korea’s forward-looking business confidence indicator (BSI) for the manufacturing sector dipped to a one-year low of 77 points for February, from January’s 82 points. The indicator thus sat further below the 100-point threshold for February, signaling another month of pessimism among Korean firms.
The index components further showed a broad-based deterioration of business sentiment for February, affecting domestic- and export-oriented firms equally. Firms grew especially more pessimistic regarding expected sales volumes in the month, while the outlook for sales prices and profitability worsened as well. On the other hand, expectations of input prices grew slightly more optimistic for February than January.
Meanwhile, confidence for February among non-manufacturing businesses—the mainstay of the Korean economy—remained unchanged from the previous month.