Hungary Retail Sales April 2008

Hungarian retail sales rose by 0.4% month on month in April, following a 0.5% decline in March, according to data adjusted for calendar and seasonal effects. The Central Statistics Office (KSH) reported a 1.5% year on year fall in April, as compared with a 3.5% fall in March.



Despite the fact that the data was better than some expected the release still confirms the view that any recovery in domestic consumption is likely to be slow and drawn out affair this year following the austerity package-induced contraction in 2007.



As can be seen from the above chart, even though sales did improve slightly over March, they are still languishing down at a very low level.