German consumer sentiment has fallen for the third month running, with shoppers particularly wary of making large purchases, the GfK economic research institute said yesterday.
GfK’s consumer index, the result of a survey of some 2,000 people, suggested that “the consumer climate in Germany will cool slightly at the beginning of the New Year,” slipping to 3.3 points for January from a revised 3.6 points this month.
GfK makes projections for the month to come based on the data it obtains.
The reason for the decline was a sharp drop in a sub-index which measures intentions to make major purchases, itself the result of expectations that energy prices would begin to rise, the institute said.
OPTIMISM
Two other sub-indices, one which measures expectations of personal revenues and another of the economy in general, rose owing to better-than-expected employment data and measures to ease taxes on families.
“Since the labor market has proven to be very robust this autumn, consumers’ economic expectations have recovered a little and recorded a slight increase in December,” GfK said.
In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel got a tax relief package worth 8.5 billion euros (US$12.2 billion) through parliament last week despite serious reservations about the country’s shaky public finances.
The package will ease the tax burden on families with children.
On Monday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the government would unveil a major savings plan by the middle of next year to put the country back on the road to fiscal health.
Schaeuble told the popular daily Bild the savings package would begin whipping the country’s public finances back into shape after Berlin approved massive stimulus plans this year to pull Germany out of recession.
Meanwhile, Sweden’s consumer confidence index showed a reading of 8.8 this month, the Stockholm-based National Institute of Economic Research said on its Web site yesterday.
The median estimate of seven economists in a Bloomberg survey was for a reading of 11.8.
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