THE first Bank of Ireland Business Confidence Index was carried out by Irish Marketing Surveys. It will be updated on a quarterly basis. The questionnaire was sent to 375 companies and received a high 51 per cent response rate, giving a sizeable sample of 191 companies. It was carried out during last month. Two thirds of the surveys were completed by the head of finance in the company involved, with the remainder completed by chief executives.

Some 30 per cent of the companies were involved in manufacturing, 13 per cent in distribution and the rest were spread across a range of other sectors from agriculture to services and the semi states. The sample was roughly evenly divided between Irish and foreign owned companies. The survey was designed to be a representative group of the top 1,000 companies in the State.

Of the company's surveyed, the larger firms employing 200 or more showed the greatest optimism about increasing turnover over the coming months. Firms employing less than 50 were also overwhelmingly optimistic, but the majorities expecting higher turnover were smaller in firms employing 50-200 people.

Not surprisingly, larger firms were the most optimistic on increasing exports. On employment, a majority of all firms expected employment to hold steady, although among larger firms around 35 per cent expected to increase job numbers.