Brussels, 09/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - After a continuous improvement since the summer the economic sentiment indicator (ESI) in the EU suffered a small set back at the end of the year. The indicator declined by 0.3 percentage points to 96.2, which however is still more than a full point above the summer level. The developments in the euro area showed a similar picture; the indicator fell by 0.4 percentage points to a level of 95.6. The decline of the indicator in the EU was mainly driven by a fall of retail confidence from -6 to -9 and the industry sector from -7 to -8. The remaining components of the ESI (the construction sector and the consumer confidence) remained unchanged. In the service sector, which is not included in the ESI, confidence in the euro area fell slightly, while in the EU as a whole confidence showed a small improvement, driven by very strong increases in Sweden and the UK. The business confidence indicator in the Euro zone remained almost stable between November and December 2003.