The Manila Standard Today reported that consumer confidence in the Philippines hit a record high in the fourth quarter of 2010 amid improving economic conditions.

Ms Rosabel Guerrero, director of Bangko Sentral's economic statistics department told reporters during the release of the consumer expectations survey for the fourth quarter of 2010 that "Consumer sentiments continued to improve in the fourth quarter, on the back of strong economic fundamentals."

Ms Guerrero said that the overall consumer confidence index climbed to 8.5% in the fourth quarter from 14% in the third quarter. She said while the index remained in the negative territory, which means pessimists continued to outnumber optimists, the figure was the highest reading recorded since the survey started in the first quarter of 2007.

Ms Guerrero said that the sustained rise in consumer confidence was supported by the better than expected gross domestic product growth of 7.5% in the first three quarters of 2010. The survey, conducted in the first 15 days of October, had 5,833 households as respondents and a response rate of 96.7%.

About 54% of the respondents came from the low income group, 36.9% from the middle income and 8.8% from the high income, or those earning PHP 30,000 and above each month.

Mr Diwa Guinigundo deputy governor of Bangko Sentral said that "The other thing that we can also highlight here is that if you look at the consumer outlook index on family income, the fourth quarter index improved from the third quarter."

(Sourced from www.manilastandardtoday.com)