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ECONOMY

German retail sales surprisingly low

High energy and food prices kept Germans out of the shops in July, data showed on Monday, the latest in a series of worrying signs for Europe's biggest economy.

German retail sales surprisingly low
Photo: DPA

Retail sales fell 1.5 percent in July from June, the statistics office said, much more than analyst forecasts for a drop of 0.4 percent. In June, retail sales had tumbled 1.4 percent.

The volatile data is calculated from information provided by seven of Germany’s 16 states, representing three quarters of the retail sector. Overall the volume of sales generated in German shops in July was around the same as in July 2007 – when adjusted for price rises – but food, drinks and tobacco goods were down 2.9 percent, the statistics office said.

July saw oil hit a record high of over $147 while food prices also rose strongly, squeezing household budgets. The “sharp fall … adds to the evidence that the economy is weakening,” Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics said.

“The data are very volatile but with the three-month average annual growth rate down at minus 0.6 percent, there is no sign of recovery in the German consumer sector,” McKeown said.

The German economy contracted 0.5 percent in the three months to June and economists, in light of the latest poor data, now question whether it could tip into recession, defined as two straight quarters of falling output. Despite the fact that both oil prices, inflation and the euro eased in August, two closely watched surveys last week showed the country’s businesses and consumers becoming ever more pessimistic.

Food prices will continue to rise steadily and charges for electricity and gas “have yet to follow in oil’s footsteps,” Commerzbank economist Ralph Solveen said.

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ECONOMY

How is Denmark’s economy handling inflation and rate rises?

Denmark's economy is now expected to avoid a recession in the coming years, with fewer people losing their jobs than expected, despite high levels of inflation and rising interest rates, The Danish Economic Council has said in a new report.

How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year. 

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’,  Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.  

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn. 

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment? 

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024  about 1 percent below the estimated structural level. 

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending? 

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”.  The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”. 

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025. 

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023. 

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write. 

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers. 

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.” 

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