In December 2023, for the third month in a row, businesses provided restrained assessments of their current performance results – the Business Activity Expectations Index (PEI) remained below the neutral level (50 points) and amounted to 45.7 compared to 49.1 in November.
The press service of the National Bank of Ukraine reported this, as Ukrinform reports, citing the results of a monthly survey of enterprises.
“Uncertainty about the duration of hostilities, risks of erratic receipts and insufficient volumes of international assistance, increased logistics costs due to border blockades, high fuel prices, narrowing investment demand, shortages of qualified personnel and weakening demand negatively impacted the assessments of participating enterprises in all sectors in monthly surveys,” explains the NBU.
According to the National Bank, after nine months of positive expectations, trading enterprises worsened their assessments of their business activity due to a reduction in the volume of imports of goods caused by the blocking of the border and a decrease in the purchasing power of the population.
For the second month in a row, industrial enterprises predicted a deterioration in their economic performance, given the decrease in the volume of export-import transactions, increased logistics costs due to the blocking of the border and high fuel prices.
Among other sectors, enterprises in the construction industry assessed the economic results of their activities the most pessimistically, given the seasonal decline in economic activity, narrowing investment demand and lack of qualified personnel.
Service companies have increased their negative assessments of the results of their current operations, given logistical difficulties with border crossings, high fuel prices and weak demand.
“All survey participants, except for industrial enterprises, predicted a slowdown in the growth rate of purchase prices, as well as prices/tariffs for their own products/services. Against the backdrop of a seasonal slowdown in activity in the labor market, estimates for employment were heterogeneous. Managers of enterprises in most sectors continued to expect a reduction in the total number of employees workers, most of all in the construction sector,” noted National Bank analysts.
At the same time, in the trade sector, after two months of negative expectations, they were determined to increase the number of employees.
The enterprise survey was conducted from December 4 to December 21, 2023. 426 enterprises took part in the survey.
As reported, in November 2023, for the second month in a row, business provided restrained assessments of the current results of its activities – the business activity expectations index (BIED) remained below the neutral level (50 points) and amounted to 49.1 compared to 49.6 in October.
Photo: NBU
