BSP conducts consumer survey in 2 Aklan barangays

By Venus G. Villanueva

Saturday 7th of July 2012

KALIBO, Aklan, July 7 (PIA6) -- Two barangays in Aklan will be serving as sample areas in the survey of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on consumer expectations.

Contracted to conduct the survey is the provincial office of the National Statistics Office (NSO) here, which will be surveying about 39 households for two weeks starting on the firs tweek of July in Bay-ang in Batan and Dumaguit in New Washington.

According to Provincial Statistics Officer Blas Solidum, the survey aims to get consumer assessment on their financial situation, the economic condition of the country and the over-all performance of the government.

Solidum added the Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) is a household-based data gathering scheme covering a total of 5,000 samples nationwide.

Data gathered from the CES are very important in forecasting the future course of the national economy.

The same surveys, according to the NSO, had been conducted in the United States, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Taiwan, and had been proven to be very effective.

In the country, the survey is very significant as expenditures of the consumers account for more than half of the total gross domestic demand for goods and services.

“The NSO’s responsibility in the survey is to undertake the data collection and encoding of the questionnaires, while that of the BSP is to generate tables and analysis of the results. The core questions in the survey cover three basic areas of consumer sentiment: personal finances, business conditions, and buying conditions," Solidum said.

He also emphasized that the survey results will guide planners in forecasting the direction of change of economy as well as the behavior of inflation rate, interests rate and exchange rates. (VGV/JCM/ NSO/PIA 6 Aklan)