Middle East consumer confidence drops

 Job seekers remain optimistic for the future with 28% of respondents believing business conditions, and 25% believing the country’s economy, will improve in the next year, according to recent research conducted by the Middle East’s number one job site – Bayt.com in conjunction with research specialists YouGov.
The trend of falling consumer confidence was repeated across the Gulf and Levant countries. Kuwait’s consumer confidence was the hardest hit, dipping even lower than the UAE – falling by 16.7 points, with dips in Bahrain of 12.0 points and Qatar of 8.9 points.
Remarkably consumer confidence in KSA dipped by less than one point at 0.9, while confidence in Syria and Lebanon dropped by 9.7 and 8.0 points respectively.
Lebanon’s large decline in February’s consumer confidence levels is starkly contrasted against a phenomenal improvement in the index of 25.5 points in the last wave conducted in November of last year.
Interestingly, North Africa did not appear to be as hard hit as the rest of the Middle East: Egypt’s consumer confidence dropped by 4.4 points, while Algeria was the only country that reported an increase – moving up the index by 1.5 points.
The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) is a measure of consumer expectations and satisfaction of various elements of the economy including inflation, job opportunities and the cost of living.