BSP to release monthly consumer, business expectations surveys

THE BANGKO SENTRAL ng Pilipinas (BSP) is looking to release monthly versions of its consumer and business expectations surveys starting next year as part of efforts to improve its understanding of the Philippine economy and its inflation forecasting.

The BSP plans to release the monthly versions of its consumer expectations survey (CES) and business expectations survey (BES) by mid-2026, BSP Deputy Governor Zeno Ronald R. Abenoja said during a central banking symposium held on Monday in Panglao, Bohol.

These will be released on top of the existing quarterly versions of these surveys and will contain limited information and a smaller sample size.

“’Yung monthly siyempre, mas konti lang. ’Yung quarterly, mas marami sa consumer expectations survey (The monthly survey will have limited content (but) the quarterly consumer expectations survey will have more),” he told reporters on the sidelines of the event.

The CES analyzes consumers’ economic outlook to determine the country’s future economic conditions, and the BES gauges business sentiment and prospects. The CES usually surveys about 5,000 households in the Philippines through random sampling, while the BES draws a random sample from a list of Top 7,000 Corporations ranked based on total assets in 2017 from the Bureau van Dijk database.

“Why are expectations important for central banks, for policymakers in general? First, expectations of households influence spending decisions,” he said during the symposium.

He added that households’ expectations of consumer prices would help guide the central bank’s inflation forecast by identifying trends.

“It affects the wage negotiation. It affects the setting of prices by businesses. So, when inflation expectations are high relative to, say, the market, then that could induce inflation over the near to medium term,” he said. “So, this is something that we are trying to understand, trying to manage what we call the anchoring of inflation expectations relative to the target.”

Meanwhile, the BSP is also working on a strategic survey with the Social Weather Stations (SWS) to ask consumers about their inflation expectations based on different possible scenarios, which will serve as a forward-looking guidance, Mr. Abenoja said.    

“This survey does not only ask what people think about inflation moving forward, but we ask that if the situation changes, what will be your expectations? What will be your behavior moving forward?” he said. “So, it’s a more forward-looking type of survey on inflation. And we are also trying to improve on our communication strategy.”

Mr. Abenoja noted that the SWS is now reviewing the CES and the proposed strategic survey.

He said the updated surveys will explore new relationships such as the impact of regional wages on inflation expectations dynamics.

“So, we continue to expand this great agenda on expectations moving forward, not only for consumers but also for businesses.” — Katherine K. Chan