The summer stopped the rise of the GKI-ERSTE economic sentiment index

After the growth in May and June, in July the GKI-Erste economic sentiment index stopped climbing. Industrial expectations worsened a bit, but the confidence index improved a little in retail (although to a smaller extent than the decline of the previous month).

Service providers’ confidence dropped a little in July. After the drop in June, GKI’s consumer confidence index augmented slightly but not enough to offset the June fall. GKI has been measuring the level of consumer satisfaction in Hungary since the beginning of 2013. We asked 1,000 consumers ‘How satisfied are you with your life in general?’ and more than 99 percent were willing to answer. Answers were turned into a scale ranging from -4 to 4 and the weighted average was around -0.5 percent in recent months, indicating that the majority of people are a little dissatisfied with their lives. The richest and poorest 20 percent of Hungarian society are satisfied to about the same extent, but starting in the second fifth a growing tendency occurred.