A busy South African factory with employees focused on textile production.
For 70 years the Bureau for Economic Research at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University has been conducting business tendency surveys. The surveys cover a range of questions, tracking everything from activity to demand, selling prices to inventories, investment and also the constraints holding back investment. But the most important question is very simple: are you satisfied with prevailing business conditions? The index looks at the responses of manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, new vehicle dealers and main building contractors. These sectors represent the productive sectors of the economy and tend to lead the rest of the economy.