(MENAFN– ecpulse) Key economic data from the euro area will be closely watched next week amid recent global weakness and expectations that the Ukraine crisis will weigh again on the sentiment .
Starting from Germany, investors will watch the Ifo business climate gauge, expected to show a decline to 107.1 from July`s reading of 108.0 .
The geopolitics heave strongly weighed on the business prospects this month, given the high tension between Ukraine and Russia which seem to have negatively reflected on investment growth amid recent downturn in industrial and manufacturing production in the 18-nation currency bloc .
The ZEW survey for August showed a sharp decline from July`s reading of 27.1 to 8.6, the lowest reading since December 2011 .
Germany`s Bundesbank has warned that global tensions such as the crisis in Ukraine are weighing on the outlook for Europe`s largest economy, putting earlier assumptions about the strength of the country`s growth at risk .
Sanctions enacted by western countries against Russia, along with counter measures that Russia has put in place, hurt firms dependent on exports as well as parts of the domestic economy such as construction, Germany`s central bank said last Monday .
The Bundesbank had warned last month that its forecast in June of growth of 1.9% this year no longer looked realistic .
The comments come days after Germany`s statistics office reported in a preliminary estimate that the country`s economy contracted by 0.2% in the second quarter of this year versus the first quarter .
On the jobs front, German employment data due this week may show the unemployment fell by 6 thousand from 12 thousand drop reported a month ago .
The euro zone economy is coming into focus with a fresh row of key reports such as inflation, jobs as well as confidence reports .
The 18-nation economy stalled in the second quarter, hurt by lingering geopolitical uncertainties hurling from the peripherals. Germany`s economy shrank for the first time in more than a year. The bigger concerns were France and Italy, where respectable rates of growth aren`t even in sight .
Although France is somehow stabilizing, today`s survey is adding more evidence that European Central Bank must to do more support the waning euro-area economy .
For the euro area, the headline reading for the CPI inflation figure the is expected another multi-year low around 0.30% compared with June`s reading of 0.4%.
ECB President Mario Draghi said in remarks at Jackson Hole gathering on Friday that the central bank is prepared to respond with all its "available" tools should inflation in the euro zone drop further, leaving the door opened to possible policy action in September.
The stubbornly-elevated unemployment is still considered as on of the major hurdles ahead of the bloc`s ailing economic recovery. The jobless rate is expected to linger around 11.5% in June.
Also next week, the euro-area confidence data for august will be out, with the headline gauge probably coming at 101.5 compared with July`s reading of 102.2.
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