Agents' Summary of Business Conditions - July 2005

• Retail sales values have fallen slightly, and demand remained weaker for durable goods. Consumer services grew at a subdued pace.
• The housing market remained muted, with both activity and prices broadly flat. Stocks on estate agents’ books rose.
• Exports grew at a moderate pace, and at a slightly slower rate than last month. There were signs that imports had weakened in response to the consumer slowdown.
• Investment intentions eased a little, but still pointed to firm growth.
• Manufacturing output growth fell back as sales for domestic consumption eased further.
• Construction output growth continued to be strong, although there were tentative signs of slower growth ahead.
• Service sector output growth may have slowed. But growth in business services and finance remained much stronger than in consumer services.
• Employment intentions and recruitment difficulties eased, although the demand for labour was still strong in the construction and professional service sectors. Staff turnover continued to be low.
• Capacity utilisation edged slightly lower, but was still above normal. However, apart from those sectors facing labour constraints, there were few signs that capacity pressures were pushing up output prices.
• Wage settlements remained flat, with the most commonly cited increase at 3%.
• Some commodity prices flattened off, but the full impact of the past oil price rises had not yet been felt.
• Consumer price inflation may have edged slightly lower.

Agents' summary of business conditions - July 2005

• Agents' scores (xlsx)
• Definitions for the Agents’ scores
• Response to consultation on changes to Agents' scores