Volume of Retail Trade Up in Euro Area
The European Union’s statistics office Eurostat has reported that retail sales in the euro zone rose 1.2% month-on-month in August with 1.9% year-on-year gain.
The 1.2% increase in the volume of retail trade in the euro area in August 2014, compared with July 2014, is due to rises of 1.7% for automotive fuel, of 1.5% for the non-food sector and of 0.6% for “Food, drinks and tobacco”.
Monthly Comparison
The highest increases in total retail trade were registered in Germany and Luxembourg (both +2.5%), Portugal and Sweden (both +2.3%) and Poland (+2.2%), and the largest decreases in Romania and Slovakia (both -0.6%).
Annual Comparison
The 1.9% increase in the volume of retail trade in the euro area in August 2014, compared with August 2013, is due to a rise of 3.6% for the non-food sector, while both “Food, drinks and tobacco” and automotive fuel fell by 0.2%. Total retail trade rose in all Member States for which data are available, with the highest increases observed in Luxembourg (+12.5%), Estonia (+6.7%) and the United Kingdom (+5.6%).
