Consumer and business confidence - February 2025

In February 2025, the consumer confidence index rose from 98.2 to 98.8. Compared to the previous month, the personal climate improved from 97.1 to 98.3, the current one from 99.8 to 100.5 and the future one from 96.1 to 96.6. By contrast, the economic climate deteriorated from 101.3 to 100.2.

With reference to the business confidence climate, the index (IESI, Istat Economic Sentiment Indicator) declined from 95.7 to 94.8.

The manufacturing confidence climate improved slightly from 86.8 to 87.0. In particular, respondents gave a more favourable assessment on order books (the related balance recovered from -21.8 to -20.4), but expected a worsening in the future production trend (the balance of the variable lowered from -0.3 to-1.1). As for inventories, the balance remained stable at 2.4.

The construction confidence climate weakened from 104.2 to 103.4. Particularly, unfavourable signals came from assessments on order book volume and light concerns stemmed from expectations on future employment (the related balances varied from  0.9 to -0.4 and from 7.7 to 7.5, respectively).

The market service climate slackened from 99.0 to 97.5. Widespread pessimism emerged from both expectations and assessments on order books  (the balances of the variables passed from 3.8 to 2.7 and from 5.0 to 4.8, respectively).  Besides, respondents were pessimistic about the current business trend (the related balance decreased from 8.1 to 4.8).

The retail trade confidence climate worsened from 106.3 to 104.0. In particular, the deterioration was due to decreasing opinions on the current and future business trend, while inventories slightly decreased (the balances of the variables, in fact, passed from 25.2 to 21.4, from 22.2 to 18.3 and from 7.0 to 6.6, respectively).