German investors confidence drops, as gas crisis halts

A closely watched survey released on Tuesday showed that German investors confidence went down in July. This was because businesses were worried about what would happen if Russia stopped sending gas to Europe’s largest economy.

The ZEW institute’s index of economic expectations dropped by 25.8 points to a level that hasn’t been seen since 2011.

For its survey, ZEW asks experts about the current state of the economy and what they think will happen in the next six months. If the reading is negative, it means that most experts are negative.

ZEW said in a statement that the reading in July was “slightly lower” than the level seen in March 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when shutdowns stopped large parts of the economy.

Achim Wambach, president of the ZEW, said that worries about Germany’s energy supply, an upcoming rise in interest rates from the European Central Bank, and ongoing restrictions in key market China because of the coronavirus all contributed to a “significant worsening of the economic outlook”

Wambach said that morale fell “particularly sharply” in industries that depend on exports and use a lot of energy.

Gazprom, a big energy company in Russia, stopped sending gas to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Monday so it could do maintenance on the link.

But a lot of people in Europe’s biggest economy are worried that the pipeline won’t be back up and running after the service period, which could cause Germany to run out of gas in the winter.

Industry would be hit hard by a long-term shutdown, and the government is already getting ready for the possibility of rationing supplies.

The survey also showed that investors’ opinions of the economy dropped by 18.2 points in July, to a score of minus 45.8 points.

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