Businesses are expecting a strong start to 2017, with expectations for profit, employment and capital investment at multi-year highs. In Dun and Bradstreet’s October Business Expectations Survey, Australian companies also flagged higher selling prices and sales for the first quarter of 2017 compared to Q1 2016.
According to Stephen Koukoulas, economics adviser to Dun and Bradstreet: “The economy is ending 2016 and moving into 2017 on a positive note. Business expectations for future sales remain upbeat and this has flowed through to a particularly buoyant outlook for profits. If these expectations are met in coming quarters, it is likely that the economy will be growing at a 3 to 3.5 per cent pace, which would represent one of the strongest growth phases for Australia since the global financial crisis.”
Dun & Bradstreet’s Business Expectations Index, the average of the survey’s measures of Sales, Profits, Employment and Capital Investment, has jumped to 23.7 points for the March quarter of 2017, up 39.4 per cent from 17.0 points for Q4 2016 and 25.4 per cent from 18.9 points in March 2016. The preliminary Q1 2017 result is 15 points above the 10-year average of 8.7 points. The index is currently at its highest point in two years, having reached 23.9 points in Q1 2015.
To download the full report, click on this link: db-australian-business-expectations-survey-media-q1-2017-prelim
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