Colombia: Consumer confidence remains entrenched in negative territory in November

The Fedesarrollo consumer confidence index recorded a slight improvement in November, rising to minus 10.0 points from minus 10.6 points in October. November’s print was, however, well below the minus 4.6 points recorded in November 2016. The indicator thus remains below the zero-point threshold that separates consumer pessimism from consumer optimism, where it has been since January 2016.

The slight improvement in consumer sentiment was largely driven by consumers’ less downbeat assessment of economic conditions. Households’ propensity to purchase big-ticket items also improved markedly in the month, and managed to offset consumers’ more negative assessment of the economy in the next 12 months.

LatinFocus Consensus Forecast participants expect private consumption to expand 2.5% in 2018, which is down 0.1 percentage points from last month’s forecast. For 2019, the panel expects private consumption to increase 2.9%.