Economic research company Ecostat’s combined consumer-business confidence index fell 0.5 percentage point to 77.6pc in October from the previous month as households were more optimistic, but business sentiment worsened, Ecostat said on Monday.
The index bottomed out at 63.1pc at the beginning of the year, then gradually improved to 68.5pc by July. Afterward, it started to rise at a faster clip.
Ecostat’s consumer confidence index rose about 5 percentage points to 96.5pc in October from September. The TOP-100 measure of confidence at Hungary’s biggest hundred companies fell 6 percentage points to 67pc and the confidence indicator for SME’s inched down 0.7 percentage point to 69.2pc.
About 40pc of big companies said output was unchanged in the past three months and one-fourth said it rose. Just 2pc expected output to grow in the coming three months, while more than half saw it declining.
About 41pc of companies planned investments, little changed from the previous survey in September.
A little more than one-fifth of big companies said their liquidity situation would improve in the coming months. A little more than half said it would remain the same.
About half of companies said their order stock was about average for the time of year, while 6pc said it was bigger than usual.
Ecostat’s survey of SMEs showed one-fifth raised output in the pats three months while production was unchanged at 41pc. Almost 30pc said they expected output to rise in the coming months, while 43pc saw it remaining unchanged.
Because of the uncertain economic situation, 77pc of SMEs said they did not see any chance of starting a new sphere of activity.
About three-fourths of companies complained about the size of “chains of debt”, 62pc said credit was hard to come by and 42pc said taxes were too high.
About 28pc of SMEs said they planned new investments.