Worst has passed, but little hope of sharp rebound in consumer spending

THE worst has passed in terms of the collapse in consumer spending but there is little prospect of a sharp rebound.

The latest KBC Ireland/ ESRI consumer sentiment index weakened to 48.7 in August. This compares with a figure of 49.5 in July and to an all-time low of 39.6 in July last year. However this is significantly lower when compared with the 13-year average of 93.4 for the index.

Analysis of the results found that the modest improvement seen of late implies that consumers are not quite as fearful as they were through the summer of last year or the early part of this year.