According to the data released by Eurostat, the volume of retail trade grew by 0.2% in the European Union in July 2011. However, these figures show that in annual terms retail sales index decreased by 0.2% in both zones in July 2011.

These first estimates related to EU retail trade index in July from the statistical office of the European Union Eurostat, also show that despite the positive figures the slight increase is smaller than the growth registered in June when retail trade rose by 0.7% and 0.5% in the Euro area and the EU respectively.

Among the Member States for which data are available, total retail trade grew in ten, fell in nine and remained stable in Germany and Spain. The largest increases were observed in Portugal (+2.5%), Romania (+2.2%) and Latvia (+1.8%), and the highest decreases in Malta (-3.4%), Finland (-1.9%) and Denmark (-1.7%).

As for sectoral data, in July 2011, compared with June 2011, “Food, drinks and tobacco” fell by 0.4% in the Euro area and by 0.3% in the EU as a whole. The non food sector increased by 0.5% and 0.6% respectively.

In annual terms, Luxembourg leads the list of states with highest retail trade index increase (+8.3%), followed by Lithuania (+7.8%) and Latvia (+6.4%). The largest decreases were observed in Malta (-8.9%), Portugal (-5.3%) and Denmark (-5.1%).