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ECONOMY

Shoppers spending cash despite recession

Despite the worst economic crisis since 1945, German consumers are ever more confident in the future and increasingly willing to part with their hard-earned cash, a closely-watched survey said on Monday.

Shoppers spending cash despite recession
Photo: DPA

The GfK consumer confidence index rose to an estimated 3.5 points in August from a revised 3.0 points in July, the GfK institute said in a statement.

A sub-index measuring consumers’ willingness to buy rose dramatically to 25.1 points from 14.5 points in July and from minus 26.2 in August 2008.

The institute said low inflation had made consumers more eager to rush out

and make purchases, in addition to a relatively stable labour market, despite the crisis.

Unemployment figures would play a key role in the future development of consumer sentiment, the GfK institute said.

“A long-lasting stabilisation of the consumer climate will depend on how the labour market develops in the future. If the unemployment figures climb

high in late autumn, this will be a test for consumer confidence,” GfK said.

The survey is the latest to suggest that Europe’s top economy could be rebounding from its worst slowdown in recent history.

A study by Ernst and Young published in daily Die Welt on Monday showed that two out of three firms in Germany believe the economy will improve by 2010, rising to nearly eight in ten companies seeing a brighter future by 2011.

Moreover, 54 percent of the businesses polled said that Germany was likely to emerge stronger after the crisis than it was before.

On Friday, a closely-watched survey by the Ifo institute, measuring the mood among German firms, rose for the fourth month running in July.

Nevertheless, the government still sees Germany – one of the world’s top exporters – shrinking by a record six percent this year.

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ECONOMY

How is Denmark’s economy handling inflation and rate rises?

Denmark's economy is now expected to avoid a recession in the coming years, with fewer people losing their jobs than expected, despite high levels of inflation and rising interest rates, The Danish Economic Council has said in a new report.

How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year. 

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’,  Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.  

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn. 

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment? 

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024  about 1 percent below the estimated structural level. 

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending? 

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”.  The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”. 

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025. 

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023. 

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write. 

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers. 

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.” 

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