Korea: Forward-looking business confidence increases for July
The Bank of Korea’s forward-looking business confidence indicator (BSI) for the manufacturing sector has registered pessimism among businesses for every month since June 2011. For July 2018, the indicator increased to 80 points from June’s revised 79 points (previously reported: 80 points). Nevertheless, the BSI remained below the 100-point threshold for July, signaling yet another month of pessimism among Korean manufacturers.
A breakdown of the BSI components showed that, for July, businesses in the manufacturing sector were less pessimistic in their sales, sales prices and profitability expectations. Meanwhile, manufacturers noted no change in their optimism regarding raw material purchase prices for July.
Confidence among non-manufacturing businesses—the mainstay of the Korean economy—increased to 85 points for July from 82 points for June.