ISLAMABAD: Despite tall claims of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government about revival of economy, 91 percent people say they are not comfortable about purchasing a car or home in December 2019, as this number stood at 90 percent earlier in August 2019, a new opinion survey of IPSOS, a global market research firm, revealed.
The consumer confidence survey painted a bleak performance of the government since inflation, unemployment, increasing poverty and burden of taxes remained the top worrying issues for the public. When asked about the current economic situation, only three percent found the situation very satisfactory but 40 percent were very dissatisfied.
There were four major worrying aspects for respondents, as 81 percent considered increasing inflation as major concern, 79 percent found unemployment, 56 percent increasing poverty and 55 percent burden of taxes as major worrying issues in line with results of survey undertaken in December 2019.
About 79 percent respondents said that the country was heading towards a wrong direction so there was no hope of any improvement in their lives over the next six months.
IPSOS conducted the survey in Pakistan for December 2019 from both rural and urban population with same sample size undertaken in August 2019 and itsManaging Director Abdul Sattar Babar shared the startling findings of the survey with the media by stating that there were 31 percent respondents who had witnessed losing of job by themselves, their relatives or someone of their acquaintances in last one year mainly because of worst economic conditions.
There are 30 percent individual respondents who considered unemployment as the top worrying issue in Pakistan, then 29 percent considered higher inflation, 11 percent burden of taxes and 6 percent rising poverty.
This indicates that 76 percent worrying issues were related to the worst economic situation. Interestingly, contrary to the perception, only two percent respondents considered corruption, bribery and nepotism as the major worrying issue in Pakistan. The same thing applied to the case of media, as only 2 percent respondents found that decreasing freedom of speech and censorship was a major issue.
Only four percent and three percent respondents considered terrorism and increasing prices of electricity as major issues. Only two percent considered power load shedding as a major issue.
The combined findings of the survey for December and August 2019 showed that 81 percent considered increasing inflation as number one issue, while 79 percent found unemployment as the second major issue.
When the survey asked the respondents whether they were satisfied or unsatisfied with the way things were going in Pakistan, only 4 percent said they were very satisfied, while 40 percent were very dissatisfied.
Most alarmingly, 79 percent respondents found that the country was heading towards a wrong direction over next six months, while only 21 percent said the 6-month future direction was on the right path.
The survey found that the average global consumer index stood at 48.5 while in Pakistan it was on much lower side and clinched 32.8 index indicating that it was almost 16 indices lower than global average.
In comparison with BRICS countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, Turkey, China, Pakistan’s performance remained much lower on the current economic index, expectation index, investment index and jobs index.
An eye opening survey for Imran Khan who is in a massive bubble that everything is right.