Consumer confidence in Chile improves in January after Boric’s election as president

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Positive airs brought the beginning of the new year. The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) measured each month by Ipsos increased by 1.3 points in January compared to the close of 2021, climbing to 44.9 units.

With this increase, Chile rose to 17th place among the 28 economies the international consulting firm considered, moving up one step from the December survey and surpassing countries such as Japan, South Korea, South Africa, and Hungary. It also ranks second among Latin American countries, surpassed only by Mexico.

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Although the CCI rebounded for the second consecutive month – after an unexpected drop in November, which ended six months of improvement – this was not enough to move the national economy from the pessimism zone to optimism, as the threshold is set at 50 points.

The indicator measures consumer optimism about each country’s economy by focusing on four categories: current and future state, personal finances, savings, and confidence to invest. It comprises four sub-indices that reflect changes between each month and result in the CCI.

The fieldwork was conducted between December 24 and January 7, after the presidential runoff. The manager of Ipsos Chile, Jorge López, details that in that period, the national events were centered on “the end of the year celebrations, the political consequences of the election of Gabriel Boric as the new President and the incipient growth in the number of infections by the omicron variant”.