The Ifo Business Climate Index for industry and trade in Germany rose once more in April. Companies’ assessment of their current business situation improved somewhat on a high level, while their six-month business outlook remained unchanged from last month. The German economy is proving resilient.
The business climate in manufacturing improved again on the previous month. The manufacturers surveyed see both their current business situation and their business outlook as significantly more positive. Manufacturers are increasing their capacity utilization. Their recruitment plans are slightly more conservative than last month.
The business climate developed differently at both levels of trade. While the business climate indicator increased minimally in retailing, it fell slightly in wholesaling. Climate components also developed in opposite directions. Retailers report some deterioration in their business situation and an improvement in their business outlook. A greater number of wholesalers, on the other hand, are satisfied with their current business situation, while their expectations clouded over slightly.
In construction the business climate was bleaker. The constructors surveyed report a slight deterioration in their current business situation. They are also no longer as optimistic about their future business development as last month.
Hans-Werner Sinn President of the Ifo Institute
Ifo Business Climate Index Continues to Rise Slightly Ifo Business Climate Germany - Results of the April 2012 Ifo Business Survey (20 April 2012) Document Size: ca. 100 kb
The Ifo Business Climate for Germany (from January 1991) The table is in Excel-format for facilitating further processing by the user. Long time-series of the Business Climate for German trade and industry and its two components, the business situation and the expectations Document Size: ca. 40 kb
The Ifo Business Climate Index is based on ca. 7,000 monthly survey responses from firms in manufacturing, construction, wholesaling and retailing. The firms are asked to give their assessments of the current business situation and their expectations for the next six months. They can characterise their situation as “good”, “satisfactory” or “poor” and their business expectations for the next six months as “more favourable”, “unchanged” or “more unfavourable”. The balance value of the current business situation is the difference between the percentages of the responses “good” and “poor”, the balance value of the expectations is the difference between the percentages of the responses “more favourable” and “more unfavourable”. The business climate is a transformed mean of the balances of the business situation and the expectations. For the purpose of calculating the index values, the transformed balances are all normalized to the average of the year 2005.
To find out how the Ifo Business Climate Index is calculated and its forecasting quality please click here.
One week after the Ifo Business Climate Index is released, the Ifo Institute publishes, in the periodical "ifo Konjunkturperspektiven", the results of the most recent Ifo Business Survey in east and west Germany in all details with texts and graphics as well as the business situation for the EU as a whole and for Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy in figures. To inform non-German speakers of the survey results of the Ifo Institute, we present a short overview of the contents of each issue in English.
Consult the ifo Konjunkturperspektiven overview page for the current issue.
are published in ifo Konjunkturperspektiven. A summary is published as "Results of the Ifo Business Survey" (Archive) in ifo Schnelldienst.
24 May 2012 10:30 AM CEST 22 Jun 2012 10:30 AM CEST 25 Jul 2012 10:30 AM CEST
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