Brex-what? Confidence up as Eurozone still doesn’t care about UK’s exit
The Eurozone recovery remains resilient in the face of the UK's decision to break away from the EU, yet more economic data out this morning has shown.
The leading barometer of consumer and business confidence, the official economic sentiment indicator (ESI), increased across the Eurozone in July, with nerves about the fallout from Brexit staying rooted on this side of the channel.
The ESI crept up from 104.4 to 104.6 for the 19-member Eurozone, figures out this morning showed, though the UK dragged down the indicator for the wider EU. Confidence across the Eurozone business community continued to climb higher, though this was partly offset by a slightly weaker outlook on household finances. The improvement took the ESI to its joint-highest level for the year.
Stephen Brown, economist at Capital Economics said the figures "suggest that Eurozone businesses and consumers have largely shrugged off the negative economic implications of the UK's Brexit vote."
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The Eurozone grew faster than both the UK and the US in the first quarter of the year. With the policies of the European Central Bank (ECB) coming under close scrutiny, every improvement, however slight, is seen as vindication for President Mario Draghi and his twin policies of negative interest rates and quantitative easing which have caused discomfort in Germany.
Figures out tomorrow are expected to show the rate of growth eased back in the Eurozone in the second quarter of the year, with estimates that GDP grew by around 1.5 per cent on an annualised basis.