SINGAPORE - Companies in Singapore have turned moderately more optimistic about business in the next three months, although confidence is still significantly below what it was a year ago, the Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau (SCCB) said on Monday.

Following three consecutive quarters of decline, business confidence has shown signs of improvement for the first time since the third quarter of last year according to SCCB's latest quarterly Business Optimism Index (BOI) study.

Companies are expecting their sales, profits, employment, new orders, inventories, and selling prices to increase in the April-June quarter of this year.

SOURCE: SINGAPORE COMMERCIAL CREDIT BUREAU

The BOI made moderate gains, rising slightly from +1.11 percentage points in Q1 2015 to +9.0 percentage points in Q2 2015.

The SCCB said the slight rebound in business optimism came amid recent reports of cautious economic growth projections. It noted that four of six indicators have remained in the expansionary region in Q2 2015, compared to Q1 2015 when only 3 of six indicators were expansionary.

But despite the reverse in pessimism, the Q2 figure was the second lowest reading in two years since Q2 2013. On a year-on-year basis, overall business confidence deteriorated as the BOI score plunged significantly from +22.66 percentage points in Q2 2014 to +9.0 percentage points in Q2 2015.