South Africa Business Confidence

In South Africa, business confidence improved to 52 in the first quarter of 2012 from 38 in the fourth quarter of 2011. Historically, from 1975 until 2012, South Africa Business Confidence averaged 45.1500 reaching an all time high of 91.0000 in September of 1980 and a record low of 10.2000 in September of 1985. In South Africa, the RMB/BER (Rand Merchant Bank/Bureau for Economic Research) Business Confidence Index measures the level of optimism that senior executives in the companies have about current and expected developments regarding sales, orders, employment, inventories, selling prices etc. Questionnaires are sent to 1400 business people in the building sectors, 1400 in the trade sectors and 1000 in manufacturing. The response rate is about 50%. The BER measures business confidence on a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 indicates an extreme lack of confidence, 50 neutrality and 100 extreme confidence. This page includes a chart with historical data for South Africa Business Confidence.

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Business Confidence
The Business Confidence Index is an indicator designed to measure he degree of optimism on the state of the economy that business owners are expressing through their activities of investing and spending. Decreasing business confidence often implies slowing economic growth because business owners are likely to decrease their investment. The idea is that the more confident business owners and managers feel about the economy, their companies, their jobs and incomes, the more likely they are to make investments and purchases. When business confidence is measured on a scale between 0 and 100, an index level below 50 means that business owners expecting their company’s performance to be weaker in the next year outnumber those expecting stronger performance.

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Japan Annual Inflation Rate Down to 0.4% in April
Published: 5/25/2012 12:11:48 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Ministry of Finance Japan
The consumer price index for Japan in April 2012 was 100.4(2010=100), up 0.1% from the previous month, and up 0.4% over the year.

Swiss Trade Surplus Narrows in April
Published: 5/24/2012 3:36:57 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Federal Customs Administration
Switzerland's trade surplus fell unexpectedly in April due to a fall in exports, the Federal Customs Administration reported.

New Zealand Trade Surplus Widens in April
Published: 5/24/2012 3:25:32 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Statistics New Zealand
New Zealand trade balance for April 2012 was a surplus of $355 million (9.1 percent of exports). For the year ended April 2012, there was an annual trade deficit of $541 million (1.2 percent of exports).

Japan's Trade Deficit Widens in April
Published: 5/23/2012 1:18:40 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Ministry of Finance Japan
Japan posted a larger-than-expected trade deficit in April, widening from shortfalls in the previous month and a year earlier as exports of steel and plastic declined on reduced demand from China and imports of fossil fuels increased.

Bank of Japan Keeps Monetary Policy Unchanged
Published: 5/23/2012 12:57:08 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Bank of Japan
At the Monetary Policy Meeting held on May 23rd, the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan decided, by a unanimous vote, to keep the uncollateralized overnight call rate at around 0 to 0.1 percent.

UK Inflation Down to 3% in April
Published: 5/22/2012 11:17:34 AM By: TradingEconomics.com, UK Statistics
UK CPI annual inflation stands at 3.0 per cent in April 2012, down from 3.5 per cent in March. The timing of Easter had a significant impact on the April data.

Japanese GDP Grows 1% in Q1
Published: 5/17/2012 11:20:34 AM By: TradingEconomics.com, Cabinet Office
Japan's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 1.0 percent in January-March from the previous quarter after a revised 0.0 percent result for October-December last year. The recovery was mostly due to solid consumer spending, post-quake rebuilding and rising exports.

U.K. Unemployment Rate Down to 8.2 in March
Published: 5/16/2012 4:26:31 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, ONS
The unemployment rate was 8.2 per cent of the economically active population for January-March 2012, down 0.2 on the quarter. There were 2.63 million unemployed people, down 45,000 on the quarter.

Euro Area External Trade Surplus Widens in March
Published: 5/16/2012 2:52:37 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Eurostat
The first estimate for the euro area (EA17) trade in goods balance with the rest of the world in March 2012 gave a 8.6 bn euro surplus, compared with +1.0 bn in March 2011. The February 2012 balance was +2.3 bn, compared with -2.9 bn in February 2011. In March 2012 compared with February 2012, seasonally adjusted exports fell by 0.9% and imports by 1.1%.

Euro Area Annual Inflation Down to 2.6%
Published: 5/16/2012 2:50:32 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Eurostat
Euro Area annual inflation was 2.6% in April 2012, down from 2.7% in March. A year earlier the rate was 2.8%. Monthly inflation was 0.5% in April 2012.

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