As the economy and employment grow, the confidence indicator has deepened the decline in the third quarter. The Bank of Albania reported that Economiy Confidence Indicator (ECI) was 102.1, marking a drop of 4.0 points in the third quarter of 2018.
The performance of the indicator reflects both the business and customer confidence slump. Despite this shift, ECI continues to stay above its long-term averageThe Industry Confidence Indicator (ICI) rezulted 0.1 percentage points below the level recorded a quarter earlier. However, the TBI continues to remain 6.0 percentage points above its historical average
The 6.1 percentage point increase in the inventory balance affected the decline in the TBI. Meanwhile, the other two components of the indicator, production and ordering contracts increased by 4.6 and 1.1 percentage points respectively. Other balances as well as the financial condition and expectations for output performance were improved. By contrast, the balances of export orders and expectations for employment in the next quarter continued to fall in the quarter under review. The capacity utilization rate stood at about 74.8%, being 0.9 percentage points above the level of the previous quarter and 1.2 percentage points above the level recorded for the same period a year earlier. However this rate continues to remain above its historical average.