Sales volume up in retail sector

The volume of retail sales in May 2003 increased by 0.4 per cent in the euro area over the same month last year and by 0.9 per cent in the EU15. These results come from an estimate published yesterday by Eurostat. Although a slight loss was evident compared with the previous month of April, the annual trend is clearly moving upwards. Here the increase within the full EU15 zone is consistently higher than the upward trend in the euro area.