BBN
Kaja Koovit
September 3, 2008
The volume of Latvian retail trade dropped by 8.5 pct in July y-o-y, the steepest fall among the European Union countries, according to the EU Statistical Bureau Eurostat data, Latvian news agency LETA writes.
The next biggest decrease was registered in Luxembourg and Spain – 5.9 percent in both countries. The average fall of retail trade volume in EU was 1.1 pct.
The highest increase of retail trade in July was registered in Romania – up 18.4 pct, Slovakia – up 6.8 pct and Poland – 6.6 pct. In Lithuania the retail trade grew by 6 pct, but fell by 4.5 pct in Estonia.
Compared to the previous month the volume of retail trade rose by 0.1 pct in EU27, but fell by 0.4 pct in the euro area. The highest increases were observed in Portugal (3.5 pct) and Lithuania (3.2 pct), the largest decreases were registered in Luxembourg (-3.7 pct) and Germany (-1.5 pct).
In Latvia the retail trade volume in July, compared with the previous month this year, fell 0.2 percent, but increased by 0.9 pct in Estonia.
Eurostat data for July includes data on 18 EU member states. Data on other EU countries were still not available.
