Business confidence in Colombia falls to its lowest level since August 2020

Both business and industrial confidence have deteriorated in Colombia, according to the October Fedesarrollo survey. In the first case, the indicator fell to 17% compared to September, the lowest figure since August 2020, while industrial confidence fell to -0.4%, a result not seen since May 2021.

According to the think tank, the drop in business confidence is due to lower business expectations for the coming months. “The decrease was mainly explained by the reduction of 18.1 pps in perception for the next six months of the company and 3.4 pps in its economic situation at the time of answering the survey.”

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Regarding the decline in industrial confidence, Fedesarrollo explained that “it is attributed to the 16.2 pps reduction in production expectations for the next quarter, as well as the negative variation of 6.7 pps in the current volume of orders from the companies in the sector compared to the month of September.”

On the other hand, the survey highlights that for the third quarter of 2022, international transport (17.6%), port services in Colombia (12.4%) and the competitive position in destination markets (7.6% ) were the most favorable factors for the export activity of the companies.

However, the most unfavorable factors were the availability and cost of credit (-21.9%), the economic situation of the purchasing country (-14.0%), as well as the trade and customs policies of the purchasing countries (-12,0%).

In line with the above, Fedesarrollo says that the balance of exporters’ expectations regarding the performance of their activity in the next three months was 9%, which is equivalent to a reduction of 13.8 pps compared to 2022-ll and a decrease of 12.2 pps compared to the same quarter of 2021.

“29.3% of those surveyed stated that their exports will increase in the next three months, while 20.3% believe that their exports will decrease, and the remaining 50.4% expect their exports to remain the same,” he added.

With information from Bloomberg Línea

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