Spain's retail trade records 0.9% growth in April 2023

Breaking down sales by product, non-food products experienced a robust growth of 2 per cent. In terms of distribution classes, all categories showed positive monthly rates, with single retail stores recording the highest growth at 4 per cent.

In annual terms, the RTI, adjusted for seasonal and calendar effects, registered a variation of 5.5 per cent in April 2023 compared to the same month of the previous year. However, this rate was 4.4 points lower than that of March 2023, as per the National Statistics Institute of Spain.

The original RTI series at constant prices reported an annual variation of 5 per cent, a figure lower by 4.9 points than the previous month's rate. Excluding service stations, the seasonally and calendar-adjusted index saw a strong annual increase of 8.2 per cent in April. Breaking down these sales by product type, non-food products experienced a significant jump of 14.3 per cent.

April's retail figures also painted a positive picture across all autonomous communities in Spain, with Illes Balears, Comunidad de Madrid and Comunitat Valenciana registering the highest annual increases at 12.4 per cent, 10.4 per cent and 7.1 per cent respectively. In contrast, Castilla y Leon registered a slight decrease of 0.6 per cent.

As for employment in the retail trade sector, the index registered an increase of 1.8 per cent compared to the same month in 2022. The rate was slightly higher than the one recorded in March. All but one of the autonomous communities saw an increase in retail trade employment in the annual rate, with Illes Balears registering the highest growth at 5.3 per cent.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DP)