German business confidence surprisingly jumps in November

German business confidence registered a small but unexpected rise in November, slightly reliving recent market concerns that the Europe's largest economy would slip into the turmoil and recession caused by the ongoing debt crisis, a survey showed Thursday. The Munich-based Ifo institute said its business confidence index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, climbed to 106.6 points this month from 106.4 points in October, suspending four consecutive months of decline. The rise surprised analysts, who had expected a considerable drop to 105.3 points as the eurozone debt crisis gained a momentum of spreading from relatively small economy to the core of eurozone, like France and Italy, according to surveys by Dow Jones Newswires. Latest figures showed that "the German economy is still performing relatively well despite the international turmoil," said Hans-Werner Sinn, the president of the Ifo institute, when releasing the report. The expectations sub-index, an indicator of business outlook for the next six months, jumped to 97.3 points in November from 97.0 last month, after continuous declining for eight month, while gauge measuring business leaders' view on current economic state remained untouched at 116.7. On Thursday, Germany's statistics office confirmed that the country's economy boosted 0.5 percent in the third quarter from the second one, an outstanding outcome in the eurozone area, where many nations are struggling to win back market confidence and get their economies back to the right track. Although German weathered the storm of debt crisis in the past, some analysts warned that slack demands from debt-laden eurozone partners and worldwide economic gloom would force its export-powered economy to see a cooling growth, or even a mild recession in the coming months. The German government expected its economy would expand 2.9 percent this year. However, the growth would slow down to 1 percent in 2012.