OREANDA-NEWS. On August 24, 2009 Antimonopoly Policy Improvement Center (APIC)  issued the first business activity index, which shows optimistic expectation of businesses in Uzbekistan. The business activity index will be issued during the first week of each month. APIC 40 index developed based on answers of 40 largest industrial and service enterprises, which sensible for changes in global and local markets and do not have significant seasonal fluctuation for their products and services, reported the press-centre of APIC.

APIC decided to use two the most spread methods on calculation of business activity: PMI (Purchasing managers’ index) and IFO (Business climate index). Use of both methodologies is necessary to determine methodology is the most effective for work with received data and show real situation of business sector and its expectations. The center said methodology will improve regularly and number of respondents will increase.

Index on IFO methodology is integral and it includes assessment of current situation and expectation to forthcoming month. Value of index can vary between -100 and +100, but it usually fluctuates between -50 and +50. At the same time, positive value speaks about favourable situation and negative about fall of business activity and optimism.

Within PMI methodology, the center developed two separate index – CPMI (current) and EPMI (expected). This approach can help to determine how optimism level in current month will correspond to situation in future. Index value can vary from 0 to 100, but usually it fluctuates between 40 and 60. If PMI index is higher than 50, the business activity growth is observed, otherwise – recession.

The center said it developed general figures for all industries and separate figures for industry and service sectors.

IFO index made up 18.4% in July, which shows positive growth of business sector compared to previous month. Calculation showed that business activity significantly grew, service sector growth was higher – 11.7% to 23.3%.

CPMI index for July was 57 and EPMI index for August was 59, the center said. The first figure shows the growth of business activity in July compared to June, while the second figure shows optimistic expectations of business sector for August.

At the same time, forecast on industry growth on PMI for August was less optimistic compared to service sector. It is expected that business activity in industry sector will less than in July (56.6 in July against expected value of 55.4). Expectation of business activity in service in August was higher compared to July (60.8 against 62.6).