Korea: Forward-looking business confidence jumps up in March but remains downbeat

For March, the Bank of Korea’s forward-looking business confidence indicator (BSI) for manufacturers increased to 76 from the 65 recorded for February. However, the reading was still below the crucial 100-point threshold separating pessimism from optimism, where it has been since June 2011.

A breakdown of the BSI components showed a broad-based improvement in confidence for March. Prospects for sales and profitability improved the most for the month, followed by raw material purchase prices and sales prices. Meanwhile, confidence among non-manufacturing businesses increased to 75 for March from 70 for February.

Korea Fixed Investment Forecast

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists expect fixed investment to fall 0.4% in 2019, which is up 0.3 percentage points from last month’s forecast of 0.1% growth. In 2020, the panel expects fixed investment to grow 1.9%.