Business confidence in Germany beat expectations to rise again in April.
The data underlined the resilience of Europe's biggest economy to the long-running debt crisis.
The Ifo economic institute's closely watched business climate index edged fractionally higher to 109.9 points in April from 109.8 points in March.
This exceeded analysts' expectations, who had predicted a slight decline.
It is in fact the sixth month in a row that the barometer has risen and it now stands at its highest level since July 2011.
"The German economy is proving resilient," said Ifo president Hans-Werner Sinn. "The Ifo business climate index rose once more in April. Companies' assessment of their current business situation improved somewhat on a high level, while their six-month business outlook remained unchanged from last month," he added.
Ifo calculates its headline index on the basis of companies' assessments of their current business and the outlook for the next six months.
And while the outlook sub-index was unchanged at 102.7 points in April from March, the sub-index measuring current business inched higher to 117.5 points from 117.4 points.
