Indonesia boasts the highest consumer confidence index in the world, a survey by the Nielsen Company shows, effectively brushing off any threat to economic activities here from the global economic crisis.
The survey, revealed Thursday, showed Indonesia topped Nielsen’s global consumer confidence index with 104 points, followed by Denmark (102 points) and India (99 points).
The lowest score goes to Korea and Portugal, with 31 and 48 index points, respectively.
“Indonesia is the most confident country in facing the global crisis,” the Nielsen executive director of customer research, Catherine Eddy, said during the announcement of the survey.
The latest biannual Nielsen Consumer Confidence survey, conducted between March 19 and April 2 and involving interviews with 25,140 regular Internet respondents from 50 countries, showed that global consumer confidence had plummeted to a new record low in the past six months.
The index fell 7 points, down from 84 to 77, according to the latest survey.
“We interviewed Internet users, whom most of whom are well-educated and have middle- to upper-income jobs,” Eddy said.
“We found most Indonesian respondents were highly optimistic in facing the crisis.”
She added 86 percent of 533 Indonesian respondents were very optimistic with local job prospects within the next 12 months, while only 9 percent felt uncertain with their job security.
“Indonesians also perceive they can keep buying the things they want and need, even during the global crisis,” Eddy said.
“Indonesians are also confident with their personal finances in the years ahead.”
The survey revealed 70 percent of Indonesians were optimistic with regard to financial stability.
Despite the optimism, the survey also showed that Indonesians tended to save their money rather than spend it during the crisis.
“Our survey discovered 67 percent of Indonesian respondents put their cash into savings,” Eddy pointed out.
She added the respondents were not holding back entirely from spending.
They also still spent their money for good bargains.
“They like to spend their money for certain materials, which would benefit some companies during the economic crisis,” she said.
The survey showed 29 percent of Indonesians liked to spend their money on new technology products, while 25 percent spent money on holidays
Twenty percent spent money on outdoor entertainment, 17 percent on house redecorating, and 44 percent on investment in shares or stocks.
“Actually there was a significant drop in the investment sector,” Eddy said.
“In the second half of 2008, 50 percent of the Indonesians interviewed invested their money in stock funds.”
She added the global crisis had already influenced Indonesians to be more careful in investing. “Surprisingly, the demand to purchase new clothes is still similar to that in the second half of 2008 and first half of 2009,” she said.
“About 17 percent Indonesian respondents still like to buy clothes,” she added. (naf)
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