The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has revealed that insecurity, high interest rate and high\ multiple taxes were the major constraints on businesses last month.

Stating this in its 'Business Expectation Survey', BES, report for August 2024, released yesterday, the apex bank, however, said the firms involved in the survey also expressed optimism over the outlook on volume of business activities in the next six months.

Their optimism, according to the CBN, implied improved prospects for employment in the same period.

The CBN noted that the sector with the highest prospect for employment was the Agriculture Sector, followed by the Industry and Services Sectors.

The report stated: "The overall confidence index (CI) at 0.9 index points indicates that respondent firms expressed optimism on the macroeconomy as they expect business conditions to improve in the review period.

"The expected drivers for the optimism on the macroeconomy in the next month are Mining, Quarrying, Electricity, Gas & Water Supply (34.8points),Non-Market Services (12.8points), Market Services (12.4points), Agriculture 11.7 points), and Manufacturing (7.7points).

"The index improved by 0.8 points compared with what was obtained in the previous month.

"Respondents expressed optimism regarding the volume of business activities and employment.

"The optimism in August 2024 is driven by the opinion of respondents from the Mining, Quarrying, Electricity, Gas & Water Supply (30.4points), Agriculture (5.2points) and Non-Market Services (2.7points).

"Similarly, the outlook for next month, the next three months,and next six months all indicated optimism with indices of 11.1, 23.1and 34.2points, respectively.

"The positive Business Activity Index and the Employment Index point to the possibility of job growth during the review month.

"It is projected that this encouraging trend will support economic stability and increase job possibilities in a variety of industries.

"Respondent firms indicated that various factors limit their business activity in the current month, with insecurity being the highest factor followed by high interest rate, high/multiple taxes, unfavourable economic climate and insufficient power supply.