Eurozone: Retail sales grow by 0.4% in February - ING

Bert Colijn, senior economist at ING, notes that the Eurozone’s retail sales increased by 0.4% in February and the services and composite PMI for March came in stronger than expected.

Key Quotes

“Monthly retail sales growth slowed a little, which was expected after the jump in January, but the annual growth rate improved significantly from 2.2 to 2.8%. The improvement was broad-based as all sales categories show healthy yearly growth at the moment.”

“This sets the eurozone up for a decent first quarter in terms of consumption growth, especially as today’s services and composite PMI for March were better than expected as well.”

“The outlook for retail sales remains quite benign despite the slow growth environment. Consumer confidence has been on the rise since the start of 2019 as the real wage growth picture has been improving.”