German consumer confidence up despite euro worries

The Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — German consumer confidence is continuing to rise, buoyed by lower unemployment and wide-ranging wage increases, even though uncertainty in the 17-country eurozone may portend problems ahead for Europe's largest economy, a closely-watched survey showed Tuesday.

The GfK institute's forward-looking survey showed consumer confidence rose to 5.8 points for July from 5.7 in June. But despite the uptick in the overall figure, GfK warned that the underlying numbers suggest that Germans are getting worried about the future.

GfK noted that that the survey's subindex measuring Germans' economic expectations dropped noticeably — by 16.6 points to 3 points in June, the lowest value since December 2011, following three consecutive increases

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June 26, 2012