Consumer confidence drops across Gulf

CONFIDENCE DROP: Consumer confidence has dropped across much of the Gulf, Mastercard said. (Getty Images)

Consumer confidence has dropped across much of the Gulf due to the global economic slowdown, record oil prices and soaring inflation, Mastercard said on Monday.

The credit card company said in a report that overall consumer confidence in markets across South Asia, the Middle East and Africa decreased from 78.4 for the first half of 2008 to 70.6 for the second half of the year.

The MasterCard Worldwide Index of Consumer Confidence analyses consumers’ perceptions of economic conditions over the six months ahead based on responses to five variables - employment, the economy, regular income, the stock market and quality of life.

Despite the region’s overall negative sentiment, the UAE bucked the trend as the only country to report an increase in consumer confidence.

The UAE’s index score of 85.4 out of a possible 100 increased from 78.5 six months ago, with consumer sentiment described as positive and optimistic.

Individual scores found consumers were more confident about employment (95.8), regular income (90.7), economy (89.9) and quality of life (85.3). However, UAE confidence in the stock market dropped to 65.2 from 73.4.

Despite declining consumer sentiment of the Middle East and Levant nations, the UAE still ranks third in overall consumer confidence, with Kuwait (89.4) and Qatar (88.6) in first and second place respectively.

India (82.1) ranked fourth, followed by Saudi Arabia (80.1), South Africa (74.3), Egypt (32.3) and Lebanon (32).

Denzil Lawson, Mastercard general manager for the Middle East and Levant, said the results indicated consumer confidence across the Gulf was still strong.

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