Both will get worse in April the climate of opinion of consumers is that of businesses: the consumer confidence climate index decreases from 96.5 to 95.2 and the composite business confidence climate indicator decreases from 97.0 to 95.8. He notices it the State. “After the increase recorded in March 2024 – explains Istat – the climate of business confidence decreases, returning to the level of last February. The decline in the overall indicator represents a widespread worsening of confidence in all the economic sectors investigated”.
In April, the institute underlines, “the consumer confidence index fell for the second consecutive month and recorded the lowest value since November 2023. The reduction in the index is mainly due to the worsening of expectations on the general economic situation (including expectations on unemployment), on family unemployment as well as a marked deterioration in opinions on the possibility of saving in the future”. The negative dynamics of the consumer confidence indicator, according to Istat, expresses the deterioration of the economic climate (from 101.9 to 99.4), the personal one (from 94.6 to 93.7) and, above all, the future one (the index drops from 97.2 to 93.9). instead, it records a slight increase (the index rises from 96.0 to 96.2). With reference to businesses, the confidence index decreases in all four economic sectors investigated, albeit with different intensities: in construction). , the most significant drops were recorded in retail trade and market services (from 105.7 to 103.4, from 104.5 to 103.0 and from 100.7 to 99.5 respectively); the decrease is more limited (the index drops from 88.4 to 87.6).
As for the components of the confidence indices of the economic sectors, in manufacturing both assessments on orders and expectations on the level of production worsen; the stocks are judged to be decumulating. In construction all components deteriorate. Moving on to the market services sector, a worsening of opinions on orders is combined with a positive evolution in opinions on business performance; Order expectations remain stable compared to last month. With reference to the retail trade, sales are judged to be improving while the related expectations decrease; an accumulation of warehouse stocks is estimated. Based on the assessments provided by entrepreneurs in the manufacturing and market services sectors on the change in investment spending in 2024 compared to 2023, a positive evolution of investments in 2024 emerges.