Berlin - German consumer confidence is set to hold steady in November after two months of decline, a survey released on Friday showed.
The Nuremberg-based GfK research group provisionally pegged its closely watched index at 8.5 for next month, slightly above 8.4
this month in Europe's biggest economy.
Analysts surveyed by dpa-AFX had been expecting consumer confidence next month to decline to 8.0 as fears mounted that the eurozone would slip back into recession, Ebola would spread further outside West Africa and bad news would continue to roll in from Ukraine and other hot spots.
While German business has been troubled by the unsolved crises and the poor state of the global economy, shoppers appear to have stopped paying so much attention, GfK economist Rolf Buerkl noted.
“Consumers surprise us sometimes,” he said.
“There aren't any rules of nature about how consumers are going to react.”
Income expectations and willingness to buy among the German public have improved, GfK's survey of consumers showed.
In a sign that big-ticket items are a tough sell right now, another survey showed deep discounts spreading at German car dealerships.
“Measured by advertisements by online brokers, discounts offered by car dealers to retail buyers for the 30 most-sold models are the steepest since the beginning of our data in January 2010,” the CAR Institute at Duisburg-Essen University said.
The average of such discounts below list price grew 2.7 percentage points month-on-month to 20.7 per cent.
Often, models were available for 25 per cent less with the blessing of manufacturers.
There have been hints of a steadying of nerves in German industry, with the widely watched index of expectations of German businesses' purchasing managers rising marginally in September, climbing 0.2 points to 54.3.
By contrast, even the German government has downgraded its growth predictions for the country in recent weeks, forecasting that gross domestic product (GDP) will only increase by 1.3 per cent this year and 1.2 per cent next year.
The figures for both had been set at just under 2 per cent earlier in the year. - Sapa-dpa