A report on household expectations has shown that many Nigerian households have lost condolence as they expect to start borrowing to meet their financial obligations in the coming months.
This was contained in the July 2024 Household Expectations Survey published by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The CBN captured the consumer’s views across three dimensions, which are the economic condition, family financial situation, and family income.
The report said all the income groups stated that their family financial situation was getting worse as they anticipate drawing down on their savings or getting into debt in the current and next month
The CBN said consumers’ overall confidence was pessimistic for three months ending October and November 2024.
“The pessimism in the review period was projected to continue into the next month and next three months with indices of -21.8 and -9.1 points respectively,” CBN said.
The CBN attributed the pessimistic outlook to declining economic conditions and declining family financial situation as consumers opined that they will be drawing down on savings or getting into debt.
The CBN said, “They, however, anticipate improvement in the total family income as the index stood at 1.6 points. Consumers were optimistic in their outlook for January 2025 as the index stood at 2.7 points.
“This positive outlook was attributed to anticipated improvement in the economy and expectations of improvement in family income in the next six months.”
Nigerian consumers also expect inflation to rise in all the reviewed periods.
It said, “The indices stood at -62.2, -53.7, -41.7 and -29.0 points for the current month, next month, next three months and next six months respectively.
“Most consumers expect the prices of the following expenditure items to rise in the current month: Transportation (68.9 points), Medical Expenses (67.7 points), Purchases of Car/Motor Vehicle (67.1 points), Purchase of House (66.8 points) and Rents (63.4 points). (Fig. 4, Table 1, Section 18).”
CBN said the drivers of inflation for the next three months were Transportation (69.3), Purchases of Car/Motor Vehicle (68.7 points), Medical Expenses (67.3 points), Rents (67.1 points) and Purchase of House (67.0 points).
CBN said consumers expect that in the next six months, prices of transportation (61.0 points), rents (60.1 points), purchase of house (58.8 points), purchases of car/motor vehicle (57.9 points) and medical expenses (57.2 points) would rise.