Singapore sees largest rise in consumer confidence across S-E Asia

SINGAPORE — Consumers in Singapore have shown the largest improvement in confidence over the last six months compared to their peers in South-east Asia, according to a survey published on Friday (May 18) by global payments technology giant Mastercard.

The 15.4-point increase in confidence to 45.4 pushed the reading for Singapore into neutral territory from a pessimistic reading of 30 points, the Mastercard Index of Consumer Confidence for the first half of 2017 showed. Three out of eight South-east Asian nations covered in the survey registered gains in confidence, with Malaysia seeing the second largest uptick of 11.1 points to 42.3, followed by Indonesia with a 4-point increase to 74.8.

In Singapore, the overall improvement in consumer confidence was driven mainly by a positive outlook on the stock market and heightened expectations in economic performance. While the survey was conducted between April and June, the positive sentiment has continued to prevail in recent weeks.

The benchmark Straits Times Index has gained 12.9 per cent so far this year, Bloomberg data showed, with sentiment boosted by strong growth in China, Singapore’s largest export destination. Meanwhile, the Singapore economy is expected to grow about 2.5 per cent this year, picking up pace from last year’s 2 per cent expansion, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in his National Day message.

Consumer sentiment in Singapore improved across all five economic factors covered in the Mastercard survey, with more than 10 points recorded in four key components - stock market (+24.1), economy (+16.5), employment (+15.6) and regular income (+11.9). In the other category of quality of life, a gain of 9 points was recorded.

Despite registering the largest improvement in confidence, Singapore’s overall neutral reading finds it near the bottom among the eight Southeast Asian economies, above only Malaysia. Cambodia leads the pack in the region with an extremely optimistic reading of 93.1 points, followed by Vietnam with 90.8 and Myanmar with 86.8.

In all, 18 economies in the Asia-Pacific were covered in the Mastercard survey, with overall consumer confidence staying in optimistic territory at 66.9 points, an improvement of 4.2 points over the last six months. The increase in confidence was driven mainly by a bullish outlook on the stock market (+7.3) and employment (+5.1). Consumers in China were very optimistic as Asia’s largest economy registered a reading of 88.2, a 7.4 point gain in the last half-year.

Between April and June, 9,153 respondents, aged 18 to 64 in 18 Asia Pacific markets, were asked to give a six-month outlook on five economic factors - the economy, employment prospects, regular income, stock market and quality of life. The index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero the most pessimistic, 100 the most optimistic and between 40 and 60 deemed neutral.