Business sentiment improves, but not to pre-MERS levels

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Business sentiment improves, but not to pre-MERS levels

Published: 31 Jul. 2015, 21:07

The nation’s business sentiment improved a little from a month earlier when the country was being affected by the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), according to the Bank of Korea’s (BOK) business survey index (BSI) for July released on Friday.

The index rose by four points month-on-month to 70. A BSI under 100 means that a majority of companies feel that the country’s economy is doing poorly. The BSI for the manufacturing industry marked 80 in April, but the figure dropped to 73 in May due to poor performances in the export markets.

The index crashed to 66 in July, its worst since March 2009, when the world’s economy was seriously impacted by the global financial crisis.

The BOK said the BSI rose as the country started getting out of the MERS impacts, but it has not fully recovered the level it used to be before the outbreak of the virus.