Manufacturers report lower export orders

The Economic Tendency Indicator, which summarises how consumers and firms view the economy, fell from 102.3 in July to 100.0 in August, a level that points to normal economic growth. The decrease is due mainly to weaker sentiment in the manufacturing industry, but the retail and consumer indicators also fell. The construction sector, on the other hand, reports an even stronger situation than before, and the indicator for the service sector climbed for a third successive month.

Manufacturers report relatively good growth in domestic orders over the past three months, but a decline in export orders, especially in the electronics and automotive industries. Production plans for the next three months also remain somewhat more pessimistic than normal.

The building and civil engineering industry reports an increase in orders over the past three months. Activity has been largely unchanged in homebuilding, whereas civil engineering firms report increased activity. Around six out of ten firms cite shortages of labour as the main obstacle to increased activity, which is a much higher proportion than normal.

Retailers report normal sales growth over the past three months. Their overall view of the current sales situation remains positive and they anticipate healthy sales growth in the coming months.

Firms in the service sector report relatively strong growth in demand over the past three months, and their overall view of activity levels has improved to well above the historical average. Expectations for demand over the next three months are optimistic, and recruitment plans have been revised up somewhat from July.

Indicators

Note. The standardisation of the Economic Tendency Indicator means that it cannot be calculated as a weighted mean of the levels of the sector confidence indicators.

The indicators are revised each month when the time series are seasonally adjusted. The values will often then move slightly up or down.

The situation is: ++ very strong, + strong, = normal, - weak, -- very weak.

The confidence indicator for the total industry is obtained by weighting the confidence indicators for building and civil engineering, manufacturing, the retail trade and the private service sector on the basis of the number of employees in the population. These weights are different to those used in the calculation of the Economic Tendency Indicator.

The confidence indicator for the private service sector has been estimated for January 1996 to November 2001 on the basis of quarterly series for a limited number of service industries.

Household expectations on inflation and interest rate