Eurozone: Retail sales dropped to 0.8% in September - ING

Bert Colijn, Senior Economist at ING, points out that the annual growth in Eurozone retail sales dropped to 0.8% in September.

Key Quotes

“The porridge has become a little hot in 2018 as inflation bumped up to 2.2% according to the latest data. Higher oil prices and a weakening euro are putting a significant dent in the recovery of real wage growth, curbing the potential of consumption growth in the Eurozone for the moment.”

“This shows in the September retail sales data which saw a monthly decline in sales of non-food products of -0.5%. This was mainly due to a large drop in clothing sales and because of weaker sales in computer equipment.”

“This adds to a modest picture of GDP growth in the months ahead, with not much of a bounce back to be expected after the bleak reading of 0.2% in Q3.”