German business sentiment deteriorates sharply in August - ZEW

(Sharecast News) - German business sentiment deteriorated sharply in August, according to a survey released on Tuesday. The ZEW indicator of economic sentiment fell 22.6 points from July to 19.2. This marked the worst decline since July 2022.

The indicator for the assessment of the current economic situation in Germany also declined, by 8.4 points to -77.3 in August.

ZEW president Professor Achim Wambach said: "The economic outlook for Germany is breaking down. In the current survey, we observe the strongest decline of the economic expectations over the past two years.

"Economic expectations for the eurozone, the US and China also deteriorate markedly. As a result, especially the expectations for export-intensive German sectors decline.

"It is likely that economic expectations are still affected by high uncertainty, which is driven by ambiguous monetary policy, disappointing business data from the US economy and growing concerns over an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.

"Most recently, this uncertainty expressed itself in a turmoil on international stock markets."