Italy's business confidence among manufacturers dropped more than expected to 87.1 in July from 88.7 a month ago, the statistical office Istat said on Friday. The index was forecast to drop to 88.5.
The seasonally adjusted retail trade confidence index came in at 77.7 in July, down from 81.9 in June. While confidence among small and medium scale distribution firms rose to 88.4, it fell by 11.3 points to 67.7 amongst large scale distributors.
The confidence index for the construction sector fell to 84 from 85.6. Employment expectations weakened to -15, while assessments on order books remained stable, the report showed.
The composite index, obtained by summarizing the confidence climates of manufacturing, construction, market services and retail trade, climbed in July, to 81.8 from 75.8 in June.
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