BERLIN, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) announced on Tuesday that its indicator of economic sentiment in Germany continues to fall, dropping by 22.9 points from July to 40.4 points in August.
The third consecutive monthly decline in economic sentiment points to "increasing risks for the German economy," such as from a possible fourth wave of COVID-19 starting in the autumn, said ZEW President Achim Wambach.
However, the current economic situation in Germany was assessed as better than in the previous month, with an increase of 7.4 points from July to 29.3 points in August. This improvement, "which has been ongoing for months, shows that expectations are also weakening due to the higher growth already achieved," Wambach said.
The indicator for the current economic situation in the eurozone climbed to 14.6 points in August, 8.6 points higher than in July, but expectations regarding economic development decreased for the third time in a row, falling to 42.7 points.
Lower expectations in Germany's industry are also driven by global material shortages. Last week, the forward-looking ifo indicator for industry production fell from 27 to 22 points.
"Supply bottlenecks for important intermediate products are now making themselves felt," said Klaus Wohlrabe, head of surveys at ifo Institute. Enditem
