The Ifo Business Climate for industry and trade in Germany improved slightly in August, thus fortifying its clear increase in July. The firms have assessed their business situation more positively than in the previous month. With regard to their business expectations for the coming half year, they are slightly less optimistic than in July. The German economy remains robust.
In manufacturing the business climate is again more favourable than in the previous month. The manufacturing firms have reported a better business situation than in July. With regard to the six-month business outlook they are still very confident, though somewhat less so than in the previous month. The stimulus from exports is no longer expected to be as strong as was the case in the previous months. Nevertheless, there are somewhat more frequent plans to increase staff levels.
In retailing and the business climate has brightened further. The surveyed retailers report a better business situation than in July. They are also more optimistic with regard to the business outlook for the coming six months. In contrast, the business situation in wholesaling worsened slightly. Survey participants have reported a somewhat less favourable business situation in comparison to the previous month. The six-month business outlook is also not regarded quite so positively.
The business climate in construction has clouded over to some extent. The firms no longer see their current business situation quite as favourably as in July, and they are also slightly less confident regarding business developments over the coming six months.
Hans-Werner Sinn President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich
Further Rise in the Ifo Business Climate Index Ifo Business Climate Germany - Results of the August 2010 Ifo Business Survey (25 Aug 2010) 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 of 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 of the percentages of the responses “good” and “poor”, the balance value of the expectations is the difference of 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 calculating the index values the transformed balances are all normalized to the average of the year 2000.
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 Sep 2010 10:30 AM CEST 22 Oct 2010 10:30 AM CEST 24 Nov 2010 10:30 AM CET
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