Consumer Confidence Index – September 2024

The spring and summer of 2024 reveal the turbulence in consumer sentiment in Bulgaria, calculated through the Consumer Confidence Index, which from lower levels at the beginning of the year rose in June – the month of the summer parliamentary elections – to fall again immediately afterwards and to rise to almost the same levels in September.

Traditionally, the euphoria of parliamentary elections drives more optimistic sentiments in assessments of the financial situation, the general economic situation and planned large purchases. Therefore a higher level in June has been observed.

For the last analyzed period (September 2024), the dynamics of the index is influenced by the growth in estimates for planned large purchases in the next 12 months. This is related to the growth of the basic wage and income of the population, but also to the fresh memory of the high inflation rates in the economy of the recent past.

This turbulent short-term optimism is related to the longer-term average increase in the Consumer Confidence Index, which is characteristic both of the general index calculated for all European countries and also of the countries of the Balkans, where the biggest optimists are traditionally the Serbs. and the most pessimistic assessments are given by the Greeks. In Bulgaria, the ratings move by a significant order above negativity, expressed in Greece, but at the lowest levels, comparing all other countries in the region.

This is due to the negative assessments of the financial situation of the Bulgarian, which are a mirror of the economic reality and represent an assessment of its direct effect on the Bulgarian consumer.

The forthcoming parliamentary elections may in the short term bring forward again positive sentiments, which, like the dynamics of the summer months afterwards, will determine lower values of the assessments in the expected winter months.

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LOGO Research calculates and analyzes the Consumer Confidence Index in Bulgaria on behalf of the European Commission from May 2020.