Consumer activity in Portugal took a good leap in August as more people took to the shops.
Retail trade rose by 2.3% in August compared to July. July was already 2.4% up from a fall in June.
This was the second highest increase out of all 18 eurozone countries. The average increase for the region in August was 1.2%. This was significantly higher than analysts had predicted.
It is not known if Portugal’s increase in trade was solely due to tourist consumption.
Eurostat reports that petrol and food sales increased across the region as well as items deemed non-food, such as clothing, electrical and computer goods, and items bought via the internet.
Consumer purchases still have a long way to go to reach the twin peaks of April 2007 and February 2008 when more items were bought than any time in the last nine years.
But the general trend of sales has been a gradual increase through all of 2014.
