The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has just released its quarterly Consumer Expectation Survey Report for the Q4 2019. The report shows that consumers are generally optimistic about the outlook of the Nigerian Economy in the first quarter and the whole of the year 2020.

The Q4 2019 report which is the last of the CBN quarterly Consumer Expectation Survey Report for the year 2019 reveals a high level of optimism by consumers about the Nigerian Economy. Majority of the consumers, drawn from over 2,000 households across the country and with reponse rate of 99.9% believed that: The next 12 months would not be an ideal time to purchase big-ticket items like motor vehicles and house; Most also expected the Naira to remain stable, inflation rate to rise, and borrowing rate to fall in 2020.

Respondents also believes that the major drivers of the expected rise in prices (Inflation rate) are food & other household needs, savings, purchase of appliances/consumer durables, education and purchase of houses, and purchase of car/motor vehicle.

The positive consumer outlooks for the year 2020 according to the respondents could be attributed to the expected increase in net household income (new salary increase) and its consequent of increased savings or increased prospensity to consume with its anticipated effect on economic improvement in 2020.

The respondents are however not very optimistic about the unemployment rate as they expects the number of unemployed Nigerians to rise in the next 12 months indicating increase in failing businesses and little or no new businesses coming up.

The CBN Q4 2019 Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) was conducted during the period November 18-27, 2019, covering a sample size of 2,070 households drawn from 207 Enumeration Areas (EAs) across the country, with a response rate of 99.9 per cent.

Respondents’ distribution by educational attainment showed that 8.6 per cent had university education, 10.7 per cent had higher non-university education, while 26.9 per cent had senior secondary school education. Respondents with junior secondary and primary school education accounted for 4.9 and 19.7 per cent, respectively, while those with no formal education accounted for the balance of 29.3 per cent.
Source: www.nigerianbanker.com