Belgium: Consumer confidence recovers somewhat in July

The consumer confidence indicator produced by the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) climbed from -3.0 points in June to 0.0 points in July, the first uptick in four months. July’s reading was driven largely by optimism toward household savings, as well as by decreasing pessimism toward the country’s macroeconomic situation and consumers’ personal financial situation. Meanwhile, consumers’ views on the domestic labor market were neither optimistic nor pessimistic.

Belgium Private Consumption Forecast

FocusEconomics panelists expect private consumption to expand 1.4% in 2018, which is down 0.2 percentage points from last month’s estimate. For 2019, they project growth in private consumption of 1.5%.