Business confidence in this important economic sector is rising with 40.7% of surveyed companies reporting increases in sales.
Sales trends are up: This important economic sector of the German economy appears not to be infected by the current bad economic news. Business optimism indicators identified by Creditreform are up from the previous year. Business described the current business climate with “good” or “very good” with 60.5 percent responding. Last fall, only 48.0 percent of companies had expressed positive sentiments. Currently only 2.6 percent of medium-sized companies are dissatisfied with the business situation (previous year: 4.7 percent).
Hiring trends are up: One third of Mittelstand firms (34.2 percent) have increased the number of employees in the course of the past six months. Just 7.0 percent of the respondents have reduced staff.
Order books are rising: With order books of Mittelstand firms on the rise so is business confidence. Currently 28.7% of the companies surveyed expect revenues to rise. Every ninth company feared a decline in sales (11.3 %). Nevertheless Mittelstand companies were more optimistic last year when just under one-third of respondents (32.7%) had expected increases in sales and only one tenth (10.0 percent) had projected declines.
Source: Creditreform Germany
