Cape Verde’s economic climate “improved slightly” in the second quarter, judged quarter-on-quarter. But the economic outlook is still negative, the country’s national statistics bureau, Instituto Nacional de Estatística de Cabo Verde (INECV) said.

Official data released on Friday showed that Cape Verde’s economic climate indicator – which measures business confidence – increased sequentially in the second quarter. But the result is still negative, as it has been since 2012, showed the bureau’s data.

The bureau added the indicator had dropped judged year-on-year.

It is based on the views of business people from the construction, trade, tourism, manufacturing and transportation sectors.

Confidence within the manufacturing industry for the April to June period registered “the highest value of the last 29 consecutive quarters”, Cape Verde’s statistics bureau said, adding that the sector’s economic outlook is currently positive.

But the confidence index regarding the tourism sector dropped year-on-year in the second quarter and registered its lowest value since the bureau started collecting data in 2002. Business people surveyed considered an “excess of bureaucracy and regulation” as the main obstacle to the sector in the year’s second quarter.