UK retail sales sustained the biggest decline in at least 25 years last year as the closure of non-essential shops during lockdowns more than offset the online spending boom fuelled by COVID-19, data released by the British Retail Consortium, or BRC, showed on Tuesday.
Total retail sales decreased by 0.3 per cent − the worst annual change since the data series began in 1995 − reflecting the impact of government lockdowns and shifting consumer spending trends. While online sales were boosted during lockdown, as consumers largely stayed away from the high street, sales of non-food items in physical shops collapsed by 24 per cent.
Meanwhile in the US, consumer prices were firmly on the increase in December as automobile fuel costs surged, although underlying inflation remained subdued amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic, which put pressure on the labour market and the services industry.
The Labour Department said on Wednesday that its consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.4 per cent last month after gaining 0.2 per cent in November. An 8.4 per cent jump in gasoline prices accounted for more than 60 per cent of the rise in the CPI. For the whole of 2020, CPI advanced by 1.4 per cent, the smallest yearly gain since 2015 and was a deceleration from 2.3 per cent seen in 2019. The CPI increased at a 1.7 per cent average annual rate over the last 10 years.
Finally, industrial production in the eurozone expanded by 2.5 per cent on a monthly basis in November, data published by Eurostat showed. This followed October’s increase of 2.3 per cent and blew away market expectation of a 0.2 per cent increase. On a yearly basis, industrial production contracted by 0.6 per cent in November despite the upsurge witnessed toward the end of 2020. The better-than-expected result was mainly due to a seven per cent monthly increase in output of capital goods and a 1.5 per cent monthly rise in intermediate goods, which helped cancel out falls in the production of energy and durable and non-durable consumer goods.
This article has been prepared by Bank of Valletta plc for general information purposes only.