Business confidence in France's manufacturing sector rose more strongly than expected in April with company executives increasingly optimistic about their order books and more up beat about their past output.
National statistics office Insee said today its monthly business morale indicator for April stood at 97, up four points on March. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast the indicator would rise to 95.
April's reading was still three points beneath the long-term average for the overall index, but INSEE said improvement in firms' past output had jumped to 22 from 5 the previous month.
The index measuring overall order books rose to -36 from -43. However, there was a drop in the index monitoring foreign orders, which fell to -46 from -41 in March.
Another INSEE index, which measures confidence across various business sectors, including manufacturing, building and services, rose in April to 96 from 92 the month before.
Reuters