Most recently, delivery bottlenecks have put pressure on the auto industry in particular.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The mood in the boardrooms of German companies deteriorated for the fourth time in a row in October. The Ifo business climate index fell to 97.7 points from 98.9 points in September, as the Munich economic research institute announced on Monday for its survey of 9,000 executives.
Experts polled by Reuters had expected a drop to 97.9 points. “Delivery problems are causing problems for companies,” said Ifo President Clemens Fuest. Capacity utilization in industry is falling. “Sand in the gears of the German economy is holding back the recovery.” The managers were more skeptical about their situation and the business outlook for the next six months than they were before.
The German economy had shrunk by two percent at the beginning of the year due to the corona crisis, but then grew by 1.6 percent in the course of the lockdown easing in the spring. Despite delivery bottlenecks for important preliminary products, many economists assume that growth is likely to have accelerated in the past summer quarter.
The Kiel Institute, for example, expects the gross domestic product (GDP) to increase by 2.2 percent compared to the previous quarter. However, due to the global scarcity of materials and increasing corona infections, the economy is likely to lose momentum again in the current final quarter. This was also recently signaled by the surveys of industry and service providers on the purchasing managers’ index.
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