Lebanon moved up 4.7 points on the quarterly index, when almost half of the countries surveyed from the MENA region showed declines in consumer confidence, said the study.

The CCI index measures consumer expectations and their satisfaction with the  status of their economy including inflation, job opportunities, and the cost of living.

Consumers were asked about their level of optimism towards the future. In this regard, Lebanon recorded significant improvements in consumer expectations inching up 7.5 points on the index.

Asked how they expect their personal financial position to be a year from now, the respondents were largely optimistic that things would change for the better; 45 percent of Lebanese respondents said that things will be better a year from now.

Respondents were also optimistic about the status of the economy in a year time.; 43 percent said they expect things to be better in their country's economy while only 13 percent said they believe things will become worse.

Continuing its run of improvements across indices, Lebanon moved up 1.5 points on the Employee confidence Index (ECI). The ECI measures the attitudes of respondents to the local job market, in terms of their satisfaction towards the availability of jobs and their satisfaction with their salary.

Respondents surveyed were asked questions about their personal financial status compared to the previous year.In this regard, a negative sentiment prevailed among respondents in Lebanon. Only 22 percent of respondents said their financial position has improved, while 36 percent said they were in a worse financial position.

Regarding the future availability of jobs, 26 percent said they believe more jobs will be available in a year's time. Also an equal 26 percent said they believe the job situation will get worse.

“The consumer confidence survey was conducted in order to chart how consumer confidence levels are changing as the region faces the challenges and pressures brought by economic trends and events across the globe,” said Amer Zureikat, Bayt.com regional manager.

Information was collected online between December 1st and 21st 2009 with 17,021 respondents from Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Pakistan.