Consumer confidence in Saudi Arabia shrank in the second quarter, yet it remained on par with the seventh most confident economy Hong Kong, the quarterly global ranking of consumer sentiment prepared by The Nielsen Company showed. The Kingdom's index score dropped 11 points from its first quarter ranking. Consumer confidence is the degree of optimism on the state of the economy, which people express through their saving, investing and spending. Rising inflation brought on by the social uprisings in the Middle East had tipped the index higher in both Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the second quarter of 2011. An initial bounce in consumer morale after the political unrest in the first quarter had given way to caution as the political outlook became unclear and rising prices weighed, Nielsen said. The United Arab Emirates, however, saw a slight improvement in consumer confidence compared to the previous quarter and was ranked joint fifth with Malaysia. Globally, the survey showed that consumer confidence fell in the second quarter to its lowest level in a year and a half due to an uncertain economic outlook, a deepening euro zone debt crisis and rising inflation making for more cautious sentiment. Consumer confidence in the United States was even weaker than in the second half of 2009 - the peak of the global recession. About 31 percent of US consumers said they have no spare cash for discretionary spending. This was higher than 25 percent of consumers in the Middle East and Africa who have no spare money and 22 percent of Europeans, Nielsen said. The survey showed that consumers are now planning to tighten their belts in coming months for everything from stock investing to buying clothes and taking holidays after being slightly less cautious over the past 12 months.
