New fall in monthly volume of retail trade

Malta experienced one of the largest decreases in retail trade in June, in statistics issued by Eurostat comparing trade figures with those in May 2014.

Malta saw a 1.1% decrease from May in retail trade, along with Spain (-0.8), Portugal (-1.4%), and Finland (-1.8%).

Seasonally adjusted volume of retail trade increased by 0.4% in the euro area and by 0.3% in the EU28, according to estimates from Eurostat. In June 2014 compared with June 2013, the retail sales index increased by 2.4% in the euro area and by 2.5% in the EU28.

According to the data, Malta saw the volume of retail trade go down by 3.2% in February 2014 over January, then down by 2.2% in March, increase by 1.5% in April, and then go down by 1% and now by 1.1%.

When compared over the same month of the previous year, the volume of retail trade decreased by 1.6% in February 2014, 5% in March, then increased by 2.4% in April, and down again by 1.3% in May and 1.5% in June.

Annual comparison

The 2.4% increase in the volume of retail trade in the euro area in June 2014, compared with June 2013, is due to rises of 3.0% for the non-food sector and of 2.0% for “Food, drinks and tobacco”.

The highest increases in total retail trade were observed in Luxembourg  (+12.9%), Romania  (+10.0%), Estonia (+7.8%) and France  (+4.9%), and the largest decreases in Slovenia (-2.6%), Finland  and Malta  (both -1.5%).

The index of the volume of retail trade measures the evolution of the turnover in retail trade, adjusted for price changes.