Euro area economic sentiment remains largely unchanged in April

Economic sentiment in the single currency bloc was broadly unchanged in April, the results of a survey revealed.

The European Commission's Economic Sentiment Index edged up by one tenth of a point versus the month before to 99.3.

That was worse than forecasts for an improvement to 99.9.

Brussels noted improvement in the ESIs for Spain, which rose by 3.7 points, as well as in Germany where it was up by 0.8 points and in Italy which saw a rise of 0.3 points.

However, in France it fell by 4.2 points and in the Netherlands by 1.6 points.

By sectors, an index of sentiment in services improved from 9.6 for March to 10.5, but that for industry fell from -0.5 to -2.6.

The confidence gauge for the construction sector was unchanged in comparison to the month before at 1.0.