France - Business Confidence





France: Business Confidence

Mnemonic CIB.IFRA
Unit %, SA
Adjustments Seasonally Adjusted
Monthly 2.03 %
Data Feb 2024 100.5
Jan 2024 98.5

Series Information

Source French National Institute of Statistics and Economic studies (insee)
Release Business Survey
Frequency Monthly
Start Date 4/30/1976
End Date 2/29/2024

France: Business

Reference Last Previous Units Frequency
Business Confidence Feb 2024 100.5 98.5 %, SA Monthly
Industrial Production Jan 2024 100.01 101.09 Index 2021=100, WDASA Monthly
Capacity Utilization 2023 Q4 80.7 80.6 %, SA Quarterly
Change in Inventories 2023 Q4 549 2,407 Mil. EUR, WDASA Quarterly

Release Information

For France, the INSEE Department of Short-Term Economic Analysis conducts a monthly business survey of industrial enterprises in the competitive sector. The scope of coverage includes manufacturing industries, food and agricultural industries, and oil refineries. The survey sample comprises about 4,000 enterprises.

Active:

  • Industry classification: NAF Rev. 2, the adaptation of NACE Rev. 2
  • Measurement: Balance of opinion (Bal. of opinion)
  • Adjustment: Seasonally adjusted (SA)
  • Native frequency: Monthly
  • Start date: As early as 1976

Predecessors:

  • Monthly - 2002 to 2009
  • Monthly, NAF Rev. 1 - 1976 to 2010
  • Quarterly - 1976 to 2010

The source writes:

The method used is stratified sampling without replacement and with unequal probabilities. Each sample stratum corresponds to one activity sector (using the French NAF-NSE classification since April 1999). The individual responses for each primary stratum (NSE 114 level) are aggregated after being weighted in accordance with structural constants. These are supplied annually by the enterprises themselves—as a rule, in the April quarterly survey.

Most of the monthly-survey questions concern the enterprise’s products. Responses to these questions are weighted by the total product sales (turnover) or product export sales. The only questions to which this product-oriented approach is not applied are the ones regarding overall expectations, for which a simple, unweighted mean is used.

Except for overall expectations, the inter-strata aggregation relies on adjustment coefficients from external sources (National Accounts, Annual Enterprise Survey). These provide a structure resembling that of the total French goods-producing sector.

All questions are qualitative with a triple choice. The results are reported as balances of opinion, i.e., the differences between the percentage of “increase” or “above normal” responses and the percentage of “decrease” or “below normal” responses. This presentation improves clarity without notable information loss.

The series should be consistently interpreted with caution: changes in scores should always be treated as more significant that absolute score levels. If, however, analysts wish to qualify the level figures, they should always refer to the mean long-term value of a series in order to allow for business owners’ habitual response behavior.

All series have been seasonality-tested. As a result, the published series display no residual seasonality. An initially non-seasonal series is shown as a seasonally-adjusted series with null coefficients.

Each indicator is computed as the difference between the percentages of positive and negative responses.

Change in production
Change in past three months:
... increase (+) 
… no change 
... decrease (-)
Likely change in three months ahead:
... increase (+) 
… no change 
... decrease (-)

Demand level
Total (all sources): for the season, your order intake (or demand for your products) is currently:
... above normal (+) 
... normal 
... below normal (-)
International: for the season, your order intake (or demand for your products) is currently:
... above normal (+) 
... normal 
... below normal (-)

Finished-product inventories (stocks) (products ready for sale)
For the season, your current inventories of finished products are:
... above normal (+) 
... normal 
... below normal (-)

Likely change in selling prices (net of taxes)
Likely change in your selling prices in three months ahead:
... increase (+) 
… no change 
... decrease (-)

Expectations for total French goods-producing industries
Industrial production volume: likely change in three months ahead:
... increase (+) 
… no change 
... decrease (-)

Overall prices of industrial products: likely change in three months ahead:
... increase (+) 
… no change 
... decrease (-)

INSEE presents data for this release with fewer decimal places for some series in its press release tables and their BDM macroeconomic database than it does in an Excel file released as an attachment to the press release. Data Buffet has elected to republish at a precision level consistent with the BDM and press release tables.