An EU survey has shown that business and consumer confidence in the euro zone jumped to the highest level for nearly three years in September, with a strong gain in Germany.
The economic sentiment indicator produced by the European Commission rose by nearly one point from August to 103.2 points, the highest level since January 2008 when it reached 103.5 points.
Germany posted another 'robust gain' of two points, contributing the most to the overall increase, the commission said. Among the other large euro zone economies, confidence was up 1.1 points in Spain and 0.9 points in the Netherlands while it was stable in France. It dropped by 1.2 points in Italy.
The increase in confidence was more modest in the wider 27-nation EU, rising by 0.3 points to 103.4 points, with a sharp drop of 2.1 points in Britain and a fall of 0.7 points in Poland.
Sentiment in industry was unchanged in the EU and rose by one point in the euro area, with managers reporting improvements in their order books and production expectations.
But consumer confidence weakened slightly, by one point, in the EU and remained broadly stable in the euro zone as people were ' a little more pessimistic about the general economic situation and their unemployment expectations'.
