By Eglantina Nasi
It seems that this is not a favorable time to make big purchases. But it’s not even a time of savings, because both businesses and individuals are being more reluctant on spending or investing on their future. All of this because each of them has shown less confidence on the economy.
At least this is reported by the Bank of Albania in its latest report dubbed “Business and Consumer Confidence”, for which it claims that it has registered a drop during the second quarter of this year. This period coincided with the preparation of our country for the June 25, 2017 elections, which was preceded by an intense political climate and which seems to have left a “trace” on the economic developments of the country.
“Economic sensitivity indicator in the second quarter of 2017 fell by 9.7% compared to the previous quarter. Its low level reflected the drop of confidence indicators in the sector of construction, industry, but consumer confidence saw an improvement”, economy experts say about this situation.
In practice, less confidence on the economy means more time to think before making a big purchase, but also, fewer savings. In fact, both of these elements have seen sharp falls this year, 55.8% and 40.8% respectively. This shows more insecurity to invest, in both the material aspect, but also in the monetary aspect in banks. On the other hand, this also applies to the expectations for these two indicators in the future. So, consumers have confirmed that they do not intend on making big purchases in the near future or to make savings for that matter. In concrete terms, these indicators have seen a negative performance, namely -43% and -36.4%, to show that confidence on the economy has not only dropped on the first half of this year, but it will be difficult to recover in the second part of the year, because consumers consider their current financial situation “below zero”, at a level of -4.7%. In other words, in such situations, no consumer makes excessive expenses or big savings.
