In May 2021, the consumer confidence index increased from 102.3 to 110.6 thanks to a rise in all its components, but mostly in the future climate and the economic one. In more details, the future climate surged from 109.6 to 122.5, the economic one progressed from 91.6 to 116.2, the personal one grew from 105.9 to 108.7 and, finally, the current one rose from 97.4 to 102.6.
With reference to the business confidence climate, the index (IESI, Istat Economic Sentiment Indicator) made progress from 97.9 to 106.7.
The confidence index in manufacturing rose from 106.0 to 110.2. The improvement is due, in particular, to recovering assessments on order book current trend and to growing expectations on future production. Moreover, inventories significantly decreased (the related balances varied from -6.0 to -0.8, from 9.4 to 13.1 and from 1.0 to -1.9, respectively).
The confidence index in construction went up from 148.5 to 153.9. Particularly, compared to the previous month, respondents gave more favourable assessments on order books/construction and more optimistic expectations on employment (the balances passed from -9.2 to -7.0 and from 5.5 to 10.3, respectively).
The market services confidence index got on from 87.6 to 98.4 benefiting from strong optimism that respondents expressed about the current and future volume of order books and about the current business trend (the related balances improved from -15.8 to -5.1, from 1.3 to 13.2 and from -13.0 to -1.9).
The retail trade confidence index confirmed the last month positive trend passing from 96.0 to 99.3. Particularly optimistic signals emerged from expectations on future business trend (the related balance passed from 18.7 to 24.4) and rosier indications came also from evaluations on sale current volume (balance from -12.6 to -6.5). However, the level of inventories continued to rise and the balance of the variable increased from 11.2 to 13.0. Looking at data broken down by kind of distribution, the confidence indicator improved in both kinds of trade, but the improvement was particularly evident in the traditional retail trade. The index improved from 101.4 to 102.6 in the large scale distribution and from 83.1 to 92.1 in the small and medium scale one.