Trade and transport pessimistic about the future – Mozambique stats office

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Trade and transport pessimistic about the future – Mozambique stats office

4:17 CAT | 24 Jan 2017

O País

Business confidence in trade and transport companies decreased for the second consecutive month in November, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).

For the trade sector (which includes the wholesale and retail sale of goods, trade in motor vehicles and fuels, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles, household and personal goods), the fall in business confidence was mainly due to the unfavourable assessment of both current activity and future demand. Demand was expected to fall still further, given the economic difficulties facing the country.

Negative factors outweighed the feeling that demand in November had been at acceptable levels because of the impending Christmas and year-end holidays.

According to the INE’s bulletin, the unfavourable business climate in the commercial sector was accompanied by the prospect of falling prices in November 2016.

About 34 percent of trading companies faced performance difficulties. The main factors continued to be competition (23 percent), lack of access to credit (21 percent) and unspecified factors (39 percent).

Trade is one of the sectors worst hit by the rise in prices last year. In addition, the metical fell against the dollar from its usual 30 meticals to around 80. These phenomena considerably increased production costs in a context of falling demand, which reduced turnover.

Confidence in the transport services sector also fell in November after signs of recovery in the previous month, and remained below the INE average. This slowdown was due to a negative assessment of turnover and employment prospects.

Low orders together with the current rates for transport services continued in the same month, in line with the fall in the sector synthesis indicator, in a context of declining sector tariffs prospects.

Companies felt to be experiencing constraints stood at 35 percent of those surveyed. Structurally, high operating costs, low demand and competition remained the factors negatively impacting performance in the sector most.

The sector includes regular and occasional transport of passengers and goods by sea, river, air and land (including gas pipelines), as well as related services such as cargo handling, storage, assistance of ships and aircraft at ports and airports, terminal management and the docking of ships.

Source: O País