Significant drop in business confidence in trade in May. According to what was communicated by Istat, the index recorded a decrease for both service and retail businesses. In particular, the index falls from 75,8 to 72,7 in market services and from 80,9 to 75,4 in retail trade. According to the Institute of Statistics, this is the lowest value since the beginning of the historical series, i.e. since January 2003.
In services, Istat continues, a "modest recovery of assessments on orders is accompanied by a drop in balances relating to expectations, both on orders and, to a more marked extent, on the economy in general". Assessments on employment improve, but the balance of related expectations decreases. The balance of expectations on sales price dynamics records a slight decrease.
In the retail trade, assessments on current sales worsen considerably and expectations on future ones decrease; there is an increase in the balance relating to inventories. The confidence climate index fell from 77,2 to 67,0 in large-scale distribution and from 90,1 to 86,8 in the traditional one.
