Business Outlook Index for SMEs in Gwangju-Jeonnam in January Next Year at 83.2

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] The business outlook index for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for January next year was 83.2, down 15.8 points from the previous month (99.0).

The Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Headquarters of the Korea Federation of SMEs (Head Lee Chang-ho) conducted a business outlook survey for January next year targeting 211 SMEs in Gwangju and Jeonnam from December 13 to 20.

If the index is above 100, it indicates that more companies responded positively than negatively, while below 100 means the opposite.

This marks a decline back to the 80-point level after a three-month consecutive rise (October 88.8 → November 92.4 → December 99.0), reversing the trend after four months. This is attributed to the continued rise in raw material prices and sluggish domestic demand, along with the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases due to the spread of the Omicron variant and strengthened social distancing measures, which negatively impacted the overall industry's perceived business conditions.

By region, Gwangju's index was 79.8, down 17.0 points from the previous month (96.8), and Jeonnam's was 87.8, down 14.6 points from the previous month (102.4).

By industry, manufacturing scored 85.6, down 14.9 points from the previous month (100.5), and non-manufacturing scored 80.9, down 16.8 points from the previous month (97.7).

Export outlook (95.0→100.0) rose, and employment level outlook (shortage, adequate, surplus) (95.9→96.9) also showed a slight improvement (decrease in surplus) compared to the previous month. On the other hand, domestic sales (99.5→82.7), operating profit (92.1→79.6), and financial conditions (91.4→77.7) all declined compared to the previous month.

The main management difficulties for Gwangju-Jeonnam SMEs in December this year were dominated by sluggish domestic demand (53.6%), followed by rising raw material prices (51.2%), increased labor costs (49.3%), and excessive competition among companies (47.4%).

The average operating rate of small and medium-sized manufacturers in Gwangju-Jeonnam in November was 71.4%, up 1.2 percentage points from the previous month (70.2%). Gwangju rose to 71.4%, up 2.4 percentage points from the previous month (69.0%), while Jeonnam was 71.4%, down 0.9 percentage points from the previous month (72.3%).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.