THE Covid-19 pandemic is still affecting business confidence in the Philippines with enterprises remaining pessimistic despite reduced negative consumer sentiment, according to two Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) surveys released on Friday.

The third quarter 2021 confidence index (CI) — calculated as the percentage of companies that answered 'yes' minus those that answered 'no' — fell to -5.6 percent, reversing the 1.4 percent in the second quarter, the results of the central bank's latest Business Expectations Survey (BES) showed.