German business confidence climbs - FT.com German business confidence has risen for a sixth consecutive month, highlighting the robustness of Europe's largest economy even as the eurozone debt crisis takes its toll on much of the rest of the continent. The Munich-based Ifo institute said its business climate index had edged up from 109.8 in March to 109.9 this month - the highest since last July. Although the increase was modest, the continuing upward trend suggested Germany was rebounding steadily from a weak patch late last year when the eurozone debt crisis was at its most intense. "The German economy is proving resilient," said Hans-Werner Sinn, Ifo's president. Economists had predicted a small fall. The rise showed German business had shrugged off escalating financial market worries about Spain's weak economy and banking sector. It will provide an upbeat backdrop to the opening this weekend of the Hanover trade fair, the showpiece of German industry, by Angela Merkel, chancellor, and Wen Jiabao, premier of China, the trade fair's "partner country" for 2012. The Ifo index is closely watched as a guide to future economic growth trends. It rose to record levels at the start of 2011 before falling sharply later in the year. The latest rebound has taken the index back to historically high levels, reflecting German industrialists" confidence about the competitiveness of German exports but also prospects in the domestic economy, where unemployment has fallen to the lowest since the country's reunification in 1990. German companies had "taught nervous financial markets another important lesson," said Andreas Rees, economist at UniCredit in Munich. The Ifo index's latest rise showed "once again that one should not underestimate the German economy." German companies are benefiting from the flipside of the eurozone crisis - an inflow of capital into the country, favourable financing conditions and a relatively weak euro. However, Martin Luck, economist at UBS in Frankfurt, warned German businesses may be misjudging the impact of economic contraction across the rest of the eurozone. Germany will not get away unharmed if there is a prolonged recession in the euro area. German companies may have been a bit too positive and they may be behind the curve," he said. In 2008, German companies had been slow in anticipating that year's economic slowdown, Mr Luck argued. Details of the latest Ifo index showed that April's rise was the result of the more than 7,000 companies taking a slightly more optimistic view of current business conditions. Optimism about the prospects for the next six months remained unchanged from March.