A cornerstone of the BER's work over the years has been its regular business surveys. The information from the surveys (which the BER processes into workable time series data and publishes in quarterly reports, namely the Retail Survey, Manufacturing Survey and Building and Construction Survey reports) has a proven track record as exceptionally reliable given the correspondence with the available official statistics as published by Statistics South Africa and the South African Reserve Bank. The surveys provide unique information, such as overall business confidence, as well as respondents’ rating of current business conditions. These publications are part of the BER’s Macro and Executive Service, but can also be purchased individually on our website. In addition to the quarterly business survey, the monthly manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index™ (PMI™) tracks conditions in the South African factory sector on a month-to-month basis.
Apart from the business surveys mentioned above, the BER conducts several other surveys in various sectors of the economy in order to better gauge current economic conditions. The consumer survey measures consumer confidence and provides additional information about the expected performance of the economy, the expected financial position of households and the rating of the appropriateness of the present time to buy durable goods. The quarterly inflation expectation survey, conducted by the BER and commissioned by the South African Reserve Bank, assesses inflation expectations of financial analysts, business people, trade union officials and households. Finally, the BER publishes the Building Cost Index – a measure of the percentage change in average building costs in South Africa.