Latvia leads Euro retail slide

  • 2008-08-06
  • By Mike Collier
BRUSSELS - New figures from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, show that retail trade for June fell in Latvia more sharply than anywhere else within the EU.

Among the member states for which data were made available, total retail trade rose in nine and fell in nine.

The highest increases were observed in Romania (+23.3%), Slovenia (+5.7%) and Poland (+5.2%), and the largest decreases in Latvia (-8.3%), Spain (-7.7%) and Estonia (-7.2%). Lithuania recorded a 3.1% increase.

In June 2008, compared with May 2008, the volume of retail trade1 fell by 1.0% among EU member states. In May retail trade increased by 0.9%, possibly marking a watershed in European retailing's prospects.