Press Release: January 2008: Business Climate Indicator for the euro area declines further in January

Following a decrease in December, the Business Climate Indicator (BCI) for the euro area continued to decline in January. The indicator is still at a relatively high level, which suggests that economic activity in the industry sector will continue to grow at a solid pace, despite the deceleration in industrial production growth registered in November 2007.
The decrease in the BCI is essentially caused by a worsening of industry managers' assessment of their export order books. Their appraisals of total order books and of the production trend observed in recent months also contributed to the decline but to a lesser extent. Their views of the stocks of finished products remained unchanged, while their production expectations improved somewhat.