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Business confidence at 15-year low

German business confidence fell in October to its lowest level since 1993, the Ifo institute in Munich reported on Monday as a poll by the IW institute in Cologne said a third of German firms would cut jobs next year. But German chancellor Angela Merkel rejected calls for tax cuts and a fall in VAT, sticking to a stimulus package worth 0.5 per cent of GDP.

Economists said the latest evidence, including a 3.9 cent drop in eurozone industrial orders and a doubling of the trade deficit in September, pointed to the European Central Bank cutting interest rates on December 4 by at least 0.5 percentage points.

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