Hungarian consumer confidence lowest in the world

Pessimism in Europe

A small rise (30 to 32) can not lift the Hungarians from the last place:
crisis-struck Greece ‘only’ drops to 37, while Portugal completes
Europe’s bottom-three at 39. The consumer confidence in these three
countries is nearly half the average in Europe, which is already the lowest of all the regions with 72 out of a possible 200 – with
everything under 100 considered “pessimistic”.

Norway reaches the highest European score (99), but just fails to clear
the midway-threshold. Denmark (95) and Germany (90) still have some
faith in the European future, but other major countries like the United
Kingdom (77), Spain (53), France (50) and Italy (45) think we have a
very bleak future in front of us.

… and optimism in Asia

The worldwide average climbed 5 points to reach 94, the highest in five
years. Asia/Pacific is the most (and actually, the only) optimistic
region in the world with a score of 103. The five leading nations are
all in this area, with India (123), Saudi-Arabia (119), Indonesia (118),
Philippines (118) and China (110).

“While global economic conditions are more stable than in the depths of
the European sovereign debt crisis late last year, underlying economic
conditions are still fragile and fluid in many parts of the world,
which could affect consumer confidence and spending momentum for the
coming quarter”, as dr. Venkatesh Bala, chief economist at The Cambridge Group, explains.

United States v. Korea

The United States and Asia are more optimistic as labouring
circumstances improve: consumer confidence in the former rises 9 points
(to 92) to reach its highest peak since the recession started, while the
latter has the fastest rising country with Taiwan (+13 to 84).

Most of the really low scores are European, with two important
exceptions: both South Korea (49) and Japan (58) are miles away from the
other non-European countries – the third lowest score being South
Africa at 80). 

No euphoria in Hungary

Quite remarkably, the Hungarians were still near the worldwide average
of then 98 at the list’s first edition in 2005. As the euphoria of the
European unification slowly disappeared, consumer confidence in the land
of the Magyars decreased three time faster than elsewhere.

In the last survey, 76% of Hungarians are pessimistic when it comes to
employment in their country, while only 3% was optimistic. The rest had
no opinion or refused to answer – not one person admitted to believe in
an “excellent” future. Not a good message for Hungarian politics and
economy, as such figures can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy…

The most important countries

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