German Economic Confidence Rose Less Than Expected in October -- Update

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Confidence in Europe's largest economy increased in October, but less than economists had expected, data from the ZEW institute showed Tuesday.

The numbers suggest that Germany is shrugging off any concerns about a stronger euro and the gradual end of the European Central Bank's quantitative easing.

The survey of analysts' expectations from the Center for European Economic Research, known by its German initials of ZEW, rose to 17.6 in October from 17.0 the previous month, the data showed. Surveyed economists had expected the indicator to rise to 20.4.

"The improved outlook for the coming six months is not least the result of the surprisingly positive growth figures seen in the previous months," said ZEW president Achim Wambach in a press release. He added that growth figures in Europe were improving conditions for German exporters.

"It is encouraging that a majority of investors still expect conditions to improve despite the stronger likelihood that the ECB will taper its asset purchases next year and the fact that the euro exchange rate has remained at a fairly high level," said Jennifer McKeown, the chief European economist of Capital Economics, in a note Tuesday. She added that although the ZEW index "has only a loose relationship with annual GDP growth" the figures suggest GDP growth of around 2% this year.

The Mannheim-based institute's indicator for current conditions fell slightly to 87.0 from 87.9.

Write to Todd Buell at todd.buell@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 17, 2017 06:15 ET (10:15 GMT)