Korea: Business confidence improves for March

The Bank of Korea’s forward-looking business confidence indicator (BSI) for the manufacturing sector rose from a one-year low of 77 points for February to 82 points for March. Despite the pick-up, the indicator nevertheless remained below the 100-point threshold for March, signaling another month of pessimism among Korean manufacturers.

The index components showed a broad-based improvement in business sentiment for March, particularly with respect to domestically-orientated manufacturers. Firms were less pessimistic about sales prices, profitability and input prices for March than they were for February. Meanwhile, firms saw no difference in their assessments of sales potential for March than February.

Confidence among non-manufacturing businesses—the mainstay of the Korean economy—for March increased to 82 points, up from 78 points for February.

Korea Fixed Investment Forecast

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists expect fixed investment to expand 2.5% in 2018, which is up 0.1 percentage points from last month’s forecast. In 2019, the panel expects fixed investment to grow 2.7%.