North Rhine-Westphalia trade and industry business climate
North Rhine-Westphalia trade and industry business climate stood at -6.98 Balance points in Sep 2026, according to ifo Institute and NRW.BANK. It is one of the indicators in the Regional ifo business climate table (Value · Monthly), with a complete series running from Jan 1991 to Sep 2026. The complete series with an interactive chart, free to download.
This indicator in the Regional ifo business climate table
| Indicator | 09-2026 | 08-2026 | 07-2026 | 06-2026 | 05-2026 | 04-2026 | 03-2026 | 02-2026 | 01-2026 | 12-2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Rhine-Westphalia | |||||||||||
| Trade and industry: business climate | -6.98 | -9.93 | -17.57 | -21.04 | -24.11 | -23.59 | -20.26 | -13.72 | -15.89 | -20.89 | |
| Trade and industry: current business situation | -9.68 | -9.32 | -16.32 | -15.85 | -17.04 | -19.21 | -20.79 | -18.37 | -21.25 | -25.47 |
Understanding north Rhine-Westphalia trade and industry business climate
Narrowing the focus to the core goods-producing and distributive sectors within the state, this indicator tracks the combined economic mood of local manufacturing and commerce. The composite metric fuses both immediate operational evaluations and six-month forward projections into a single measure of corporate confidence. By deliberately excluding the broader services and construction sectors, this specific cutout targets the traditional industrial and mercantile backbone of the region. It offers analysts a specialized tool for monitoring the cyclical health of the goods-based economy, differing fundamentally from the overarching state-wide gauge by its concentrated sectoral scope.
Because the data is seasonally adjusted to eliminate regular calendar disruptions, analyzing sequential monthly movements is the standard approach for identifying short-term economic shifts. The metric utilizes balance points rather than a base-year index, providing a direct net reading of positive versus negative sentiment across the selected industries. When modeling regional economic performance, users must be aware that the exclusion of the rapidly growing services sector means this metric may diverge significantly from broader macroeconomic aggregates during periods of uneven sectoral growth. Additionally, periodic updates to the weighting of specific sub-industries to reflect structural economic changes mean that historical time series should always be sourced from the latest available dataset to ensure consistency.
Frequently asked questions
- Why exclude construction and services from this specific climate indicator?
- Isolating trade and industry provides a targeted view of the goods-producing and distributive supply chains, which often follow a distinct cyclical rhythm.
- How is the composite figure calculated from the underlying surveys?
- It mathematically blends the net balance of current operational assessments with the net balance of future expectations from the specified sectors.
- Do global supply chain shocks visibly impact this metric?
- Given the heavy reliance on manufacturing and wholesale trade, the dataset is typically highly sensitive to disruptions in international logistics and material availability.