The results of the Consumer Opinion Survey for January, revealed that this indicator continues to fall since December 2021, since for this month it registered a balance of -13.5%, which corresponds to a decrease of 6.5 percentage points compared to the last month of 2021.
(Read: Measures against inflation would be felt in the second semester).
Fedevelopmententity that carries out this study, indicated that this decrease is mainly due to the fall in the index of Economic Conditions and Consumer Expectations.
Indicators that measure household expectations in a year and consumer perception about your current financial situation.
Thus, only 19.7% of those surveyed consider that their household will be doing better financially. This percentage not only decreased in relation to December, but also presented a drop of 14.4 pps compared to January 2021.
However, regarding the current economic perception, a variation of -8.1% was registered with respect to whether citizens consider that this year they have done better than the previous one. Although this indicator continues to decline, it has increased 53.7 percentage points compared to the beginning of last year, in which it registered -45.6%.
(Read: Banco de la República calculates unemployment of 11.7% for 2022).
In this regard, Luis Fernando Mejía Alzate, director of Fedesarollo, mentioned that this drop in consumer confidence is due, first of all, to the massive contagions by omicron and high inflation that has harmed the purchases of Colombians.
“The most important element is the economic news of the year: the increase in inflation in Colombia. Not only did we close levels above 5.6% in December of last year, but, as we already know, in January with levels close to 7%”, he added.
For the manager, these figures were not seen for more than 20 years and have affected the pockets of consumers. On the other hand, he stressed that food inflation is reaching 20%.
Hernán Avendaño Cruz, director of studies for the Federation of Colombian Insurers, agrees with these causes. However, he added factors such as slow decline in unemployment and lower quality of jobsgiven that growth is being recorded more strongly in the informal sector.
In addition to “the growing uncertainty generated by the complex election campaign” more than the mentioned factors. This cause was also highlighted by Julián Arévalo, Dean in charge of the Faculty of Economics at the Externado University.
(Read: Garments triggered inflation in January, why is this?).
“Faced with the candidacies of the extremes, anxiety is generated in the markets and this contributes to the deterioration in the confidence of the recovery,” he added.
This expert also mentioned the role played by high inflation, and the measures to counteract this phenomenon. “We have a series of variables that, unfortunately, are not resolved quickly or in the short term, which will surely affect consumer confidence in the coming months,” argued Arévalo.
Guillermo Alberto Sinisterra, an economist at the Universidad Javierana, agreed with the causes already listed by the previous experts, but added that there was a rebound in unemployment at the end of the year, which is generating uncertainty in purchases. “People are dedicating themselves to surviving.”He says.
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