Many sectors expect a favourable business outlook for the first quarter of the year, particularly the financing and insurance field, followed by the retail and the real estate industries.

The Census & Statistics Department's Quarterly Business Tendency Survey, released today, found 29% of respondents forecast their business situation to improve while only 10% expected it to worsen, compared with 17% in Q4 last year.

Respondents also expect a rise in their volume of business output, particularly in the financing and insurance, retail, real estate, and professional and business services sectors.

More respondents in the financing and insurance, real estate, construction, retail, and transportation, storage and courier services sectors expect an employment increase in Q1. However, more respondents in the manufacturing sector expect a fall.

There were more respondents in the real estate, financing and insurance, and import-export trade and wholesale sectors expecting their selling prices or service charges to rise in Q1, than those expecting it to fall.