Cyprus retail sales fall for second straight month

The global downturn has started to take its toll on Cyprus, as data show that retail sales fell for a second consecutive month at the end of 2008.
According to provisional figures for December, the volume of retail sales fell by 3% compared with December 2007.
In November retail sales had fallen by 3.9%.
The biggest fall was recorded in the small category of second hand goods, which fell by 41.5% compared with December 2008. There was also a large fall in sales of books, newspapers and stationery store sales of 16.6%.
However, consumers are also cutting back on the expensive items: sales of furniture, household electrical and hardware items fell by 7.7%.
Non-specialised stores selling food beverages and tobacco saw sales decline by 1.6%, having decreased by 4.4% in November.
Textiles clothing and footwear fell by 0.5%.
The only category which appears to be unaffected by global trends is sales of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, which rose by 19% in December according to the provisional figures.
By value total sales fell by 1.2% year on year on December.
For 2008 as a whole retail sales are provisionally estimated to have risen by 6.6%.

Fiona Mullen
www.sapientaeconomics.com