Research Document: Business Confidence Monitor - Gauging the Pulse of Nigeria’s Business Environment

Posted Wed, Oct 16, 2024 10:31 AM

The Business Confidence Monitor (BCM) is the flagship survey-based report of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), supported by Stanbic IBTC. The report obtains qualitative information on the current state of businesses' sentiment within the Nigerian economy and gauges expectations about the overall economic activities in the short-term. The report is anchored on business managers’ optimism on key leading economic indicators such as investment, prices, demand conditions, employment etc.

The BCM is important for several reasons. The information about current business conditions in the Nigerian economy is vital to businesses trying to make optimal decisions about production expansion, investments, hiring, and pricing. Currently, business managers have been depending on hard data reports such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) released by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to make such decisions. While such hard data on productions or investment have proved to be reasonably reliable in times of stable economic growth, they do not offer timely signals on leading, directional changes in the economy in a period characterised by low growth and uncertainties. Because such trailing indicators are often released late, they give no hint on the future direction of the economy and are less helpful in gauging present situation of the economy with short term expectations.

The BCM, therefore provides policy makers, business managers, investors, and analysts, with information about current conditions that are representative of the direction of the Nigerian economy. It does not only offers strong steer of the overall direction of the economy, it also illustrates what is driving change and highlights the key concerns of businesses for policy makers. This inaugural edition covers the period from January to September 2024.