The Mozambican Confederation of Business Associations (CTA) on Thursday launched its Business Performance Index, an instrument intended to be the body’s assessment mechanism on the economic and financial performance of the business sector.
Addressing the third CTA Economic Briefing on Business Performance and Economic Perspectives for 2021 in Maputo, the CTA chairperson, Agostinho Vuma, said the creation of the index was motivated by the need to monitor the evolution of business performance.
“The CTA has developed this index, which will be released every three months, in order to address this challenge,” Vuma said, pointing out that the theme of the economic briefing results from the need to reflect about business dynamics but also discuss the perspectives for the coming year.
Regarding the results of the index for the current edition, Vuma said the third quarter of 2020 had been marked by the gradual return of economic activity, as a result of the reopening of the world economy and the relaxation of measures to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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“This positive trend”, he said, “is reflected in the gradual increase in revenue for the business sector, which grew by 12.3 per cent in the third quarter of this year, compared with the second quarter, which has improved companies’ performance ratios”.
“The business robustness index has grown slightly from 35 per cent, in the second quarter of the year, to 39 per cent in the third quarter,” Vuma stressed.“Despite the prevailing challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the companies have shown a gradual recovery trend.”
With regard to the macroeconomic environment, Vuma said the Mozambican economy has not yet recovered from the shocks caused by the pandemic and the macroeconomic environment index showed a reduction between the second and third quarters, falling from 26 to 25 per cent.
Vuma blamed this reduction in part on the gradual depreciation of the Mozambican currency, the metical, and the slight uptick in inflation since June.
Source: AIM via Club of Mozambique