German consumer confidence fails to grow

GERMAN consumer confidence stagnated during December as concern about the outlook for government tax-cut proposals prompted shoppers to rein in income and spending expectations, the GfK AG market research company said.

GfK’s consumer sentiment index was at 5.5 points, unchanged from last month’s revised reading, Germany’s largest market researcher said. The survey was completed before the government reached a compromise on tax cuts with the opposition on December 15. Components measuring spending and income expectations fell.

“A basic reason for the renewed deterioration could lie in the fact that the mediation committee hadn’t decided whether the tax reform would be brought forward by the time the survey was completed,” GfK said. The compromise “improves the chance things will slowly improve again after a month of standstill”.