THE business outlook for the economy turned less optimistic in the first three months of the year mainly because of seasonal factors and concerns on the impact of tax reform on consumer prices, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Friday.

The confidence index (CI) — computed as the percentage of firms that answered in the affirmative minus those who replied otherwise in the BSP’s latest Business Expectations Survey — moderated to 39.5 percent for the first three months of 2018, down from 43.3 percent three months earlier, but was still higher than the 39.4 percent recorded in the same period last year.

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