Eurozone economic confidence rises to two-year high in July

Eurozone economic confidence rose to a two-year high in July despite the debt crisis, the European Commission said Thursday.

The Commission said in its monthly survey that the economic sentiment indicator for the 16-nation bloc increased by 2.3 percentage points to 101.3, marking a peak since March 2008.

The results were based on surveys among consumers and different economic sectors, including industry, services, construction and retails.

Eurostat, the European Union's (EU) statistics office, attributed the increase to the markedly positive numbers in Germany and the improved industrial sector confidence.

The majority of EU members posted improvements. Germany registered the most significant rise, followed by France, Poland and Italy.

Consumer confidence began to regain momentum, with German consumers more optimistic about the general economic situation and job prospects, which contributed a lot to the overall improvement.

Sentiment indicator has registered increases in both industrial sector and retails while the figures remained broadly unchanged in the construction sector.

Meanwhile, the business climate indicator (BCI) for the Eurozone also picked up in July, the commission said in a separate survey.

These improvements in the indicator suggested that economic activity in industry is gaining pace, although there is still some way to go to reach the pre-crisis level, the commission said.

Source: Xinhua