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Economic sentiment deteriorates in January due to new lockdown

27/01/2021 09:48

In January 2021, economic sentiment in Cyprus deteriorated as the Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI-CypERC) decreased by 5.2 points compared with December 2020, due to the new lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

According to the press release by the Economic Research Centre of the University of Cyprus, the drop in the ESI-CypERC resulted from a weakening of economic confidence among businesses and consumers.

The drop in the Services Confidence Indicator was driven by a deterioration in all of its components, namely past business situation, past turnover and demand expectations.

The Retail Trade Confidence Indicator decreased due to less favourable views on recent sales and stock volumes, despite upward revisions in sales expectations.

The Construction Confidence Indicator declined as firms gave more negative assessments of the levels of order books and revised their employment expectations downwards. The decrease in the Industry Confidence Indicator resulted from more unfavourable views on the stocks of finished products and more pessimistic production expectations, despite improved assessments of the current levels of order books.

Consumers’ expectations about their financial conditions and economic conditions in Cyprus were revised downwards, resulting in a drop in the Consumer Confidence Indicator, despite stronger intentions for making major purchases.