The volume of retail trade in the eurozone was up by 0.4% in January this year compared to December 2015 and by a more reassuring 2% when compared to a year earlier.
Portugal was the country with the highest monthly increase (6%) but this comes on the back of two consecutive months of decreasing sales. The punchy figure for January may well be related to pent-up demand coinciding with sales and promotions after Christmas.
Annually (January 2015 to January 2016) Portugal’s volume of trade also showed a health increase of 1.2%. For the last half of 2015, sales were up every month save December.
Across the euro sector, the increase was driven predominately by non-food items.
From the peak of retail trade in April 2008, sales slumped in a jagged manner to the nadir in April 2013.
A rocky recovery then took hold until October 2014 after which sales have been steadily rising for the last 15 months.
