Brussels, Luxembourg, 04/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - Economic confidence indicators and indicators for business affairs in the Euro-zone both rose in May, according to an announcement made in Luxembourg by the European Commission on Tuesday. At the same time, Eurostat demonstrated that unemployment in both the European Union as a whole and the Euro-zone had risen.
The economic confidence indicator gages the level of confidence of the main EU economic actors and in this case showed an increase of 0.4 points in May in the Euro-zone, rising from 99.4 in April to 99.8 last month. The EU 15 indicator rose by a 01. Point increase to 100.1. This trend can be explained by an upturn in confidence among consumers, the industrial world and the construction sector. This indicator, however, declined in Portugal (-0.8), Denmark (-0.6), United Kingdom (-0.5) , the Netherlands (-0.4), Sweden (-0.3) and Finland (-0.2). It remained unchanged in Germany and Austria.
The business affairs indicator in the Euro-zone, which measures confidence among industrial leaders rose by 0.4 points in May. The Commission puts this rise down to the improvement in business orders, as well as a rise in exports and more optimistic expectations regarding production trends.
Unemployment, on the other hand, remained on an upward trend in April, with a rate of 8.3% in the Euro-zone (as opposed to 8.2% in March) and 7.6% in the EU 15 (7.5% in March). Spain is the EU country most effected by this phenomenon with an unemployment rate of 11.3%.