The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is enhancing its surveillance and data-gathering capabilities to support more informed and proactive monetary policy decisions, a senior official said.
Zeno Ronald Abenoja, Deputy Governor for the Monetary and Economics Sector, said the central bank aims to upgrade its real-time monitoring systems and conduct more forward-looking assessments to anticipate potential risks and their policy implications.
“So we’re trying to improve a lot of things at the Central Bank, including our ability to monitor what’s happening on the ground in real time and what it means going forward. It is important for several reasons,” Abenoja told reporters.
Part of the initiative includes a possible recalibration of the Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) and Business Expectations Survey (BES), two of the BSP’s key sentiment indicators.
“The consumer expectations and the business expectations survey—we think these will continue to be part of our core set of sentiment surveys for households and businesses,” Abenoja said. “We are reviewing them. It’s part of the regular evaluation of the instruments.”
The CES, conducted quarterly, tracks household sentiment on overall economic conditions, financial situation, and income prospects. The BES offers forward-looking insights into business activity and key economic indicators.
“Some central banks, for example, the US Fed, have looked at strategic surveys on consumer sentiment, where they ask more forward-looking aspects of household expectations,” he added.
