Infrastructure

Home page

Infrastructure

German retail sales decline on unemployment

04 February 2009 10:22 (UTC +04:00)

Bakuâ€“ APA-Economics. Retail turnover in Germany decreased 0.4 percent in real terms in 2008 compared with 2007, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said Tuesday, Xihnua reports.
The December retail trade in real terms in Germany fell 0.2 percent month-on-month and, on an annual basis, was 0.3 percent smaller than in December 2007, provisional results of the Destatis showed.
The decline was a little bit surprising because a plunge in oil prices had created a low inflation rate in Germany and should have boosted purchasing power, the local press said.
However, a continuous increase in unemployment may be countering the inflation decline, the local press said.
The unemployment rate in Germany increased to 7.8 percent in January, continuing a rising trend that began in November 2008, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Hit by the world financial crisis, the German economy has slid into its worst recession since World War II.
The government has predicted that the economy may contract 2.25 percent this year. The government has approved two stimulus packages that will inject about 82 billion euros (about 105 billion U.S. dollars) into the economy over the next two years.