The Ifo Business Climate for industry and trade in Germany brightened once again in January. The current business situation of the firms has further improved. With regard to the business outlook for the coming half year the surveyed firms are more confident than before. The economic recovery continues at the beginning of the New Year.
In manufacturing the business climate index has risen noticeably. For the eighth time in succession, the firms have assessed their business situation as less unfavourable. Their business expectations have also brightened. For their export business they anticipate a clear revival. Although the utilisation of machinery and equipment is still below average, the rate is higher than three months ago. The personnel plans of the manufacturing firms are still geared to some staff reductions.
In retailing a nearly unchanged business situation has been reported, with retailers somewhat more reserved regarding the six-month outlook than in December. As a result, the business climate in retailing remains largely unchanged.
The business climate in wholesaling has brightened further. The survey participants are once again more satisfied with their business situation. They are also less critical regarding business development in the coming half year.
In construction the business climate index has risen strongly. Although the surveyed contractors have given slightly more unfavourable assessments of their current business situation than in December, they are clearly less sceptical regarding business in the near future. Currently, however, many firms are complaining about the weather-related constraints on construction activity.
Hans-Werner Sinn President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich
Further Brightening of the Ifo Business Climate Ifo Business Climate Germany - Results of the January 2010 Ifo Business Survey (26 January 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”, “satisfactorily” 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 in ifo Schnelldienst.
23 Feb 2010 10:30 AM CET 24 Mar 2010 10:30 AM CET 23 Apr 2010 10:30 AM CEST
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