WILLEMSTAD - More than a third, namely 33 percent, of the companies that were approached in connection with the business cycle survey by The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) indicate that they have invested in the first half of 2021.
That is slightly less compared to December 2020. The CBS conducts this survey every six months. The most recent was conducted from June to August and covered the first half of 2021.
"32 percent of the companies indicated that there were obstacles to investment," the CBS said in a statement. An average and lower percentage than December 2020, when 39 percent was measured.
Investing in innovation or replacement is 'of great importance' for the existence and maintenance of a company, explains the CBS. “If a company wants to make a profit and, above all, continue to make a profit, investments are even a sine qua non. Investment barriers therefore play a very important role in undertaking and making investments.”
The business survey also measures opinions on the investment climate. “The investment climate, also referred to as the entrepreneurial climate, is one of the determining factors for investing in a company.”
Matters such as: trust, legal certainty, government functioning, stable financial and political policy, labor legislation, degree of corruption, as well as availability and quality of infrastructure and production factors. "A bad investment climate can lead to less investment, less economic activity, less employment and capital flight," the researchers explain.
Opinion on the investment climate had "improved quite significantly" by mid-year compared to December 2020. Significantly fewer companies have indicated that the climate is 'bad'; this has decreased from the high rate of 57 percent to 38 percent. “Also quite high, but a clear improvement”, according to the CBS.
The share of companies that have indicated that they find the climate 'good' has increased slightly from 3 to 4 percent of the companies. Clearly more companies regard the investment climate as 'moderate'. This has increased by 16 percentage points to the level of 2019, i.e. pre-corona, from 40 to 57 percent.
There are differences between companies with few, more and many staff. The perception has improved everywhere, but most of all in the large companies. In small companies – up to ten employees – 51 percent indicated that the investment climate was 'moderate' (was 32 percent).
In addition, fewer small companies now think it's 'bad'; that has decreased from 67 to 47 percent. “This is significantly less than the previous period.” Virtually no small company thinks the investment climate is 'good'; less than 2 percent of the respondents.
“The situation has also improved among medium-sized companies and the percentages have improved,” said the CBS. Here, 'moderate' has increased from 43 to 58 percent and the percentage of 'poor' has decreased from 53 to 37 percent. More than 5 percent think the investment climate is good now (was less than 4 percent as of December 2020).
The improvement in the perception of the investment climate has also mainly occurred in the large companies – with more than 50 employees. As of June 2021, a third think the investment climate is 'poor'. In December it was still 52 percent. Moreover, here too, more large companies find it 'moderate'; 61 percent of these companies (previously 45 percent). The share of 'good' has increased slightly here; from 3 to 6 percent.
This is according to the business cycle survey that was conducted in the months of June-August among more than 460 companies in Curaçao.