Rise in the Ifo World Economic Climate Indicator

The Ifo World Economic Climate clearly improved at the beginning of the third quarter of 2007. Both the appraisals of the current economic situation as well as the six-month expectations have brightened again. These results point to a ro-bust economic development in the second half of 2007. The improvement in the Ifo Indicator affected all three major economic regions: Western Europe, North America and Asia. The inflation expectations for 2007 are largely stable at 2.8% for the US and 2.1% for Europe. In Asia they have risen slightly to 2.7%. The US dollar is considered to be slightly and the Japanese yen as clearly underval-ued. In contrast, the euro and the British pound are seen by the WES experts as still overvalued.