Austria: Consumer confidence improves slightly in June

The consumer confidence indicator produced by the Fessel-GfK Institute inched up from May’s minus 8 points to minus 7 points in June. Despite the mild increase, the consumer confidence index remains below the 0-point threshold, which indicates that pessimists outnumber optimists.

June’s result reflects households’ less pessimistic views regarding their current financial situations and their future financial standing. Consumers’ assessment of the current economic situation was somewhat better compared to the previous month and their opinions concerning the country’s economic prospects improved notably compared to May. Moreover, consumers’ willingness to buy big-ticket items in the next 12 months improved over the previous month.

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast expect private consumption to expand 0.6% in 2014, which is down 0.1 percentage points from last month’s forecast. For 2015, panelists see private consumption rising 1.2%.