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The index of economic climate in Greece reached 98.2 points in February against 95.3 points in January, as shown by a survey of the economic situation conducted by the Research Institute of Industrial Economics. Yet one more month has seen a serious gap between the expectations of consumers and those of businesses.

While in almost all business sectors expectations have weakened, consumer confidence has seen a substantial improvement. Thus, an impressive growth of nearly 20 points has been registered in the latter, with its index reaching its highest value in the last six years.

According to the Institute, "it is an interesting fact that a similar value for the consumer confidence index was recorded in October 2009, i.e. immediately after the parliamentary elections back then. As seen from the February survey, after the last election, and while the framework of a possible agreement with the European partners was not yet clear, citizens' expectations improved significantly in terms of the country’s and individual households’ financial position. This improvement offsets the deteriorating expectations on the supply side, and the overall result is a rising index. "

In particular, the Institute’s survey shows the following:

Industry: manufacturing projections over the coming months are improving, while expectations for stocks have declined slightly, and estimates for orders and demand have weakened.

Services: there are negative assessments for current demand and short-term demand trends, as well as for the current state of businesses.

Retail: positive assessments of current sales have fallen significantly, while forecasts for their short-term development have improved slightly. The negative assessments of stock levels have changed slightly.

Construction: projections for employment in the sector have stabilised, while the negative forecasts for the employment schedule of businesses have improved slightly.

Consumer confidence: forecasts for the economic situation of households and of the country over the next 12 months have improved, as have saving intentions and unemployment projections.

A slight improvement of the economic climate in the European Union and the eurozone

The economic climate in February has improved slightly compared with the first month of the year in both the EU and the Eurozone, with the economic index reaching, respectively, 105.1 points (from 104.7) and 102.1 points (from 101.4), which is above the level of the long-term average in both cases.

In particular:

In the euro area, the index appreciation results from the improvement of expectations in retail and consumer confidence, while expectations remain unchanged in services, construction and industry. In particular, the industry index has remained stable (+0.1), as has that in services (-0.3) and in construction.

The February changes in retail (+1.5) and consumer confidence (+1.8) are positive. At the country level, overall expectations are improving in Spain (+0.8), Italy (+2.4) and France (+2.0), and worsening in Germany (-0.5) and the Netherlands (-0.5) .

The EU economic climate has also improved, but less palpably. Expectations in the two largest economies outside the Eurozone – the United Kingdom (+0.1) and Poland (+0.3) – have only seen slight changes. At the individual industries level, consumer expectations follow the respective trends in the Eurozone.