Business confidence remains very, very fragile, and we're still in an environment where businesses are more concerned with cutting costs than with ramping up investment projects.

Whether you're going into business for yourself or not, you're still looking at a very anemic job market.

This was a pretty positive number, with solid increases in output of business equipment and consumer goods.

What this means is that business leaders are not convinced that strong sales numbers will be maintained on or at the same level.