German business leaders’ confident

German business confidence rose to an eight-month high in March. The Munich-based IFO Institute said its business-climate index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, increased to 109.8 from a revised 109.7 in February (a figure above 100 indicates ‘optimism’). Economists forecast that the index would remain unchanged at the initial February reading of 109.6.

Timo Klein, the senior German economist at IHS Global Insight in Frankfurt, said: “This is reassuring evidence that the German economy will not be thrown off track again due to the rise in oil prices or lingering euro-zone debt crisis risks.

“The odds that the German economy will strengthen continually during the course of 2012 remain quite high.”