Business confidence falls sharply

The Business Expectation Survey summary released by the central bank on Monday says that business confidence currently stands at a second all time low of 40 percent from 82 percent in the last survey as both domestic and export-oriented firms become pessimistic.

"Confidence among producers for the domestic market is set to fall further, but there may be some improvement in sentiment in 2010. This is in line with increasing expectations that the global recovery may have commenced, although until this is clearly manifested, confidence across businesses is likely to remain low," said the report, which covered 2009 up to June 2010.