CBA CALCULATES COMPOSITE ECONOMIC INDICES FOR FIRST QUARTER OF 2006
Noyan Tapan
Mar 16 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 16, NOYAN TAPAN. The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA)
calculated the composite economic indices for the first quarter of 2006
with respect to the fourth quarter of 2005 – the business environment
index made 107.8 units, the economic activity index – 131.5 units,
and the consumer confidence index – 99.6 units. NT was informed from
the CBA press service that with the aim of calculating the first two
indices, over 600 organizations in industry, construction and the
service sector were surveyed based on a selective principle. The
business environment index is calculated by finding the average
of the organizations’ assessments of the risks and changes in the
overall economic situation, the economic activity index – based on
the average of the organizations’ expectations about output volumes,
orders for production and reserves.
The consumer confidence index is calculated taking into account the
households’ responses about changes in their incomes, expenditures
and employment and their attitude towards the current economic
conditions. The questions have a qualitative character and include such
response options as “grew”, “remained unchanged” and “declined”. After
the survey, the specific weight of each option in the overall number
of responses is calculated, then the specific weight of positive
responses is added to half of the specific weight of neutral responses
to get the balances of the responses. The values range from 0 to 100,
with a value above 50 showing high activity, a value under 50 – low
activity, while 50 means an unchanged state. The CBA has calculated
the composite economic indices since the second quarter of 2005. The
balances of survey responses to calculate the composite economic
indices for the second, third, fourth quarters of 2005 and for the
first quarter of 2006 (with respect to the previous quarter) made:
the business environment index – 53.9, 52.2, 54.1 and 58.3 points,
the economic activity index – 72.2, 71.0, 53.6 and 70.5 points, and
the consumer confidence index – 51.53, 50.9, 51.5 and 51.3 points. The
final indices were calculated as the ratio of the response balances
to the respective index of the base period.