THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Euro crisis batters Asia Pacific consumer confidence

Euro crisis batters Asia Pacific consumer confidence

Thai consumers demonstrated an improvement in confidence in the first quarter, making Thailand as one of five Asia Pacific countries covered in MasterCard Worldwide Index that recorded positive sentiment.


 The other 9 markets record negative sentiment as concerns about slow growth spread across the region. The survey was conducted between December 5, 2011 and February 8, 2012 on 12,915 respondents aged 18 to 64 years in 25 countries within Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa. This is the 38th survey of consumer confidence conducted since 1993.
 Only 5 out of 14 Asia/Pacific markets polled recorded positive sentiment when compared to the first half of 2011. The last Index conducted during the first half of 2011 showed that 11 out of the 14 Asia/Pacific markets polled recorded positive consumer sentiment with stable optimism. Overall, Asia/Pacific saw a drop from 57.4 points in the first half of 2011 to 52.1 points with declines in all key indicators of regular income (69.0 to 64.5 points), employment (56.8 to 49.3 points), economy (54.8 to 49.3 points), quality of life (49.7 to 49.6 points) and stock market (56.7 to 47.9 points).

Significant improvement was recorded in emerging markets such as Indonesia (up 21.8 points), Thailand (up 19.5 points), India (up 18.4 points) and the Philippines (up 24.7 points). However, extreme deteriorations were recorded in Hong Kong, down 38.7 points compared to the first half of 2011. Taiwan (down 36.3 points), Singapore (down 25.9 points) and South Korea (down 19.7 points) also saw strong declines in consumer sentiment compared to the previous six months.
 

“The persistent Europe-centered crisis is a serious drag on global economic growth, which is a headwind common to all markets in the Asia/Pacific region. However, it is the differences in the domestic environment that have clearly caused consumer confidence to diverge sharply between the key regional markets,” observes Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, global economic advisor for MasterCard Worldwide.


“The strong showing of emerging markets like Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and India suggests that domestic factors that boost private consumption can make a big difference in sustaining positive consumer sentiments even as overall growth is slowing,” he concluded.

 

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