Ifo Business Survey for March 2007

The business climate in German industry and trade brightened in March, after the cooling in the previous two months due to the increase in the rate of VAT. The index is now slightly below the fifteen-year high reached in December. The enterprises evaluated both their current business situation and their six-month outlook more favourably than in February. In eastern Germany the climate improvement was clearly more noticeably than the federal average, since the current business situation received more positive assessments.