ZURICH (MaceNews) — Germany’s business climate improved further in September driven by a more optimistic outlook for both current conditions and expectations, amid signs the economy is stabilizing despite rising COVID-19 infection numbers.
The Ifo institute measure of business confidence rose to 93.4 in September from a revised 92.5 (92.6) the previous month, broadly in-line with the median forecast of 93.5 in a survey of economists conducted by Econoday.
The assessment of current conditions also improved, rising to 89.2 from 87.9 in August, slightly outperforming expectations which called for an increase to 89.0.
Expectations also gained, showing a modest improvement to 97.7 from a revised 97.2 in August (97.5). Economists in the Econoday survey were looking for a slightly better result of 98.0, according to the median.
Nevertheless, “companies once again assessed their current situation as better than the previous month. They also expect their businesses to recover further,” said Ifo President Clemens Fuest in a statement accompanying the numbers.
While business sentiment improved, German consumers were not as upbeat. On Wednesday, GfK reported that consumer confidence for September fell to -1.7 from -0.2 in August. This was completely due to a decrease in the propensity to consume which fell to 38.4 from 43.7 in August, while economic and income expectations improved.
For October, GfK expects consumer confidence to be little changed at -1.6.
Ifo will next release its Business Climate Index on October 26 at 10:00 am CET.