Summary
The EU economic sentiment indicator maintained in December the downward movement of the five previous months and the consumer confidence indicator has worsened over the past five months. On the domestic side, the economic climate indicator diverged from the level where it had remained in the previous months, diminishing slightly. In November, the private consumption indicator stabilized, the investment indicator accelerated and the economic activity indicator continued to recover. On the other hand, the indicators on the supply side, namely the services turnover indices and the industry and construction production indices, revealed lower year-on-year variations in November. In the same month, in nominal terms, an acceleration of imports (1.4 p.p.) and a slow down of exports (-0.2 p.p.) were observed.Year-on-year inflation slowed down from 2.8% in November to 2.7% in December. In 2007 the average inflation rate was 2.5% (3.1% in 2006). Considering the HIPC annual inflation, a reduction of the differential to the Euro Zone was observed, from 0.8 in 2006 to 0.3 in 2006.