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German business confidence down

October 26, 2015

Largely unfazed by the Volkswagen cheating scandal, business confidence among top German executives has only eased slightly. The refugee crisis hasn't caused much movement either, according to the Ifo think tank.

https://p.dw.com/p/1GuBp
Modern German factory
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Charisius

German business confidence fell just slightly in October, a closely watched monthly index of the Munich-based Ifo economic research institute showed.

The think tank's barometer dropped from 108.5 points in September to 108.2 points in October, marking a much shallower dip than analysts had expected.

Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn said the latest reading showed "the German economy's amazing resilience in the face of numerous challenges."

Rosy outlook

The poll among 7,000 executives in Germany had been expected to reflect growing concerns about China's economic slowdown and structural problems in many other emerging economies, including Brazil and Russia.

But managers seemed optimistic that those issues would not translate into painful losses for Germany's exporters.

Even more surprisingly, the executives polled voiced confidence that the current scandal surrounding Volkswagen's emission test cheating software would not have a severe impact on the German car industry as a whole.

On the contrary, carmakers in the country even expected a pick-up in production volumes in the months to come.

hg/pad (Reuters, AFP)