Korea: Forward-looking business confidence remains broadly unchanged for January
For January, the Bank of Korea’s forward-looking business confidence indicator (BSI) for manufacturers was stable at December’s 71 points, leaving it below the crucial 100-point threshold separating pessimism from optimism. The BSI has registered pessimism for every month since June 2011
A breakdown of the BSI components showed that businesses had broadly unchanged views about their operating environment for January compared to the prior month. In terms of profitability and sales, manufacturers were slightly more upbeat for January, although for raw material purchase prices they were less optimistic. Regarding sales prices, businesses’ perspectives were unchanged for January. Meanwhile, confidence among non-manufacturing businesses fell to 72 points for January from 74 points for December.