A survey conducted by the private Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) found that the high cost of housing and inflation have significantly lowered Macau’s consumer confidence for the last four years.
The results of the survey on Macau’s Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) for the second quarter of this year compared to all previous results were presented in a press conference Monday, hosted by the director of the university’s Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD), Prof. Chan Lai Kow and the institute’s researcher Chan Ka Hei, on the campus in Taipa.
The latest survey asked 1,033 randomly chosen respondents aged 18 or above via telephone.
The index values range from 0 (no confidence at all) to 200 (complete confidence), with a benchmark of 100 meaning “neutral”. A value below the benchmark indicates “insufficient confidence”, while a value above 100 means “having confidence”.
The survey cited by The Macau Post Daily showed that the CCI has been less than 100 every quarter since the first one published in the fourth quarter of 2008, indicating the city’s residents are not confident enough to make large purchases throughout the four-year period.
The index is composed of six factors including local economy, employment, inflation, standard of living, cost of housing, and investments.
The survey showed that “house purchases” and “inflation” have registered the lowest values among the six factors every quarter beginning in the second quarter of 2009. The low values for these two categories mean the consumers are not at all confident about buying a home and their confidence level is greatly depressed by inflation. For “home purchases”, the figure for the second quarter is lower than in the previous quarter, dropping from 50 to 49.02, which the survey said indicated that “the public’s pessimistic mood for purchasing a property still prevails”. The survey noted that “the CCI has been below 100 for long periods because of the particularly low values in the property purchase and inflation categories”.
The overall CCI recorded 87.63 for the second quarter, with a tiny reduction from 87.92 in the previous quarter, showing that “overall the public’s confidence to purchase is still not enough”, the survey said.(macaunews)
