Consumer confidence in Italy reported a slight gain in September, rising to 96.8 (from 96.2 in August), new data from the country’s national institute of statistics (ISTAT) has found.
Among the various components of consumer confidence, the economic climate index improved from 97.0 to 98.8, the current climate index jumped from 99.2 to 99.9, and the future climate index from 92.2 to 92.6, the data showed. The personal climate index edged up slightly, from 95.9 to 96.0.
Business confidence
Business confidence also rose, again marginally, with the ISTAT Economic Sentiment Indicator (IESI) rising from 93.6 to 93.7.
Manufacturing confidence remained unchanged at 87.3 for the month, as manufacturing firms ‘improved their assessments on the order book level but indicated a less favourable evolution of future volume of production’, ISTAT noted. Inventory levels were considered stable for the month.
The construction sector reported a modest rise in confidence, with the index rising from 101.3 to 101.5. ‘Assessments on order books improved, while expectations on employment showed less encouraging signals,’ ISTAT noted.
Elsewhere, market services confidence continued to grow, rising from 95.1 to 95.6, with respondents ‘more optimistic’ about future order books, however evaluations of both current business trends and current order book levels worsened. The business trend balance dropped from 2.0 to 0.3, while the order book balance shifted from 1.1 to –0.2.
Retail trade confidence
Despite marginal improvements in confidence in most sectors, retail trade confidence proved an outlier, with the index registering a decline from 102.7 to 101.6. Within the sector, the index related to current business trends fell sharply, from 15.7 to 7.9.
At the same time, retail sector assessments of inventories and expectations about future sales volumes showed some improvement. The inventory balance rose from 8.8 to 9.6, while expectations about future sales increased from 22.0 to 27.1. Read more here.
