EU retail trade bounces in May

Why no data for Cyprus?

Signs that consumer spending in the eurozone may be recovering came on Tuesday, with Eurostat data showing that retail sales volume bounced by 2.0% compared with the same month of the previous year in May, having recorded a fall of 0.8% in April.

Data for the EU25 show a similar upturn, with a year-on-year rise of 2.1% in May, compared with a fall of 0.2% in April.

Data for the eurozone show that there was a comparatively large increase in sales of food, beverages and tobacco, which rose by 2.0%. Sales of textiles, clothing and footwear rose by a comfortable 1%, while the fastest growing category was sales of pharmaceutical and medical products, up by 4.4%.

Cyprus data lagging behind

The publication of every member state’s retail sales data also underlines how far behind Cyprus is in publishing this important indicator of consumer demand.

Nineteen countries, including four new member states, have provided data all the way up to May (although five have produced the data but are not yet allowed to publish it). Another four countries have produced figures up to April.

Cyprus, on the other hand, has managed to produce data only up to March (the CYSTAT site has it only up to February).

Only Malta beats our poor performance by producing nothing at all.

The government had gone home for its nap by the time we studied these figures, so we were unable to find out why we are so behind.

Since CYSTAT can produce tourism and CPI data with lightning speed, maybe it is the shopowners themselves who are dragging their feet.

But one thing is for sure. Businesses will be unable to plan properly for the future if they are dealing with statistics that are months out of date.

For the time being, we can only cross our fingers that the impressive year-on-year growth rates for Cyprus, showing retail sales volume up by 6.1% in February and 6.6% in March, will be repeated for the rest of the year.

Fiona Mullen