Business confidence on the rise despite soft commercial property market
Research from a private company has found that retail market conditions may soon be on the road to recovery.
The National Australia Bank (NAB) has released the details of its Monthly Business Survey, indicating mixed activity on a number of fronts but with a generally positive outlook.
While economic conditions have softened slightly - with mild decreases in stock indices and capacity utilisation - forward orders were shown to increase, as did business confidence.
The improvement in outlook from managers and directors was mainly due to the Reserve Bank of Australia's decision to reduce the interest rate, with added relief in the form of strengthened European resolutions that participants believe will reduce the chance of a "double dip recession".
According to the report: "While conditions were a little below average levels in the month, trend conditions have been fairly flat and are consistent with an economy that has broadly marked time over recent months."
It also stated that business confidence was likely to continue to improve - with a recent increase bringing it back into positive territory at two index points.
While this is still four points under the quarterly average of six - and well below the lofty 20 recorded back in 2009 - it could signal to investors that the commercial property market will improve sooner rather than later.
