Dubai, August 11: India showed the highest jump in consumer confidence, a 13-point leap from 99 in the March 2009 survey, a Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Survey has revealed.
Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Indonesia climbed 9 points each, and Taiwan and Brazil experienced 8-point increases in their consumer confidence levels.
Further, UAE ranks the seventh most optimistic country in the world in the second quarter of 2009, the survey says.
The Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Index survey, conducted in 28 markets in June 2009, rose to 82, recording an increase of 5 points (from 77) from March 2009 for UAE.
Although, 87 percent of UAE consumers polled believe they are in an economic recession, about half (45 percent) are confident that the country will emerge from it in the next 12 months, registering a 13 percent hike from the last survey conducted in March 2009.
As per the index, consumer confidence levels also climbed 7 points in Singapore, Turkey, Russia, Philippines and the United Kingdom. The United States and New Zealand were the only exceptions to this upswing, holding flat in the second quarter, and Germany was the only country to register a decline of one index point.
With 93 points, the UAE ranks 7 in the Global Consumer Confidence Top-10 list, trailing the emerging economies of Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Brazil, Australia and China, but ahead of Canada, New Zealand and Singapore.
Nielsen Regional MD Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan Piyush Mathur said, “this is a major turning point for the UAE. Consumer confidence reached a record low in March but, three months later, UAE consumers are starting to embrace the idea of recovery.”
In Nielsen’s latest survey, which polled 14,029 online consumers in 28 countries late in June, 71 percent of the respondents said their country is in recession- a positive reduction of 6 points from a high of 77 percent in March 2009.
–Agencies