German business confidence dips for second consecutive month

BERLIN (AP) — A closely watched survey shows that German business confidence has declined for the second consecutive month as concerns about lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic and supply bottlenecks cloud companies’ outlook. The Ifo institute said Wednesday that its confidence index for Europe’s biggest economy dropped to 99.4 points in August from 100.7 in July. While executives’ assessment of their current situation improved, their outlook for the next six months was significantly worse. On Tuesday, official statistics showed that the German economy grew by 1.6% between April and June compared with the previous quarter, a slightly better showing than initially reported.