ZURICH (MaceNews) – Economic sentiment in Germany declined moderately in July as economic expectations in the closely watched ZEW indicator fell 4.1 points from the previous month to 59.3. Despite the decline, the July reading is the second-highest since the 61.7 result in January 2014.
Despite the decline in the outlook, the current situation, though still negative, improved by 2.2 points to -80.9, which is still well below the -43.1 reading in March.
In June, both measures had improved from their previous month’s results, according to the Mannheim-based institute.
“The outlook for the German economy largely remains unchanged compared to the previous month. After a very poor second quarter, the experts expect to see a gradual increase in gross domestic product in the second half of the year and in early 2021,” ZEW said in a statement.
For the Euro-Area economy, the results were more positive with both expectations and current conditions improving over the July readings. Expectations rose 1.0 points to 59.6 with current conditions improving by 0.9 to -88.7.
The Ifo Institute will release its Business Climate index for July on the 27th of this month. In June, all three elements of the index, climate, current situation, and expectations improved over the previous month.