Retail business activity fell in November in annual terms, weighed down especially by food and the sale of household goods, according to data offered today by the INE. The moment is marked by inflation, which has become the main concern of consumers and which in November stood at 6.8%.
When reporting the inflation data in November, the INE identified food as the products that had become more expensive, with an increase of 15%. The Government has just approved a battery of measures to lower food prices, including the elimination of VAT for basic products and a cut from 10% to 5% in olive oil and pasta.
The annual rate of the General Retail Trade Index, published today, registers a decrease of 0.8% in November or 0.6% if seasonal effects are eliminated and the calculation is made at constant prices. The annual drop is mainly due to the 2.5% drop in food and the 5.2% drop in the purchase of household equipment.
The slight contraction in trade occurs despite the fact that some categories are growing strongly. This is the case of service stations, in which there has been an increase of 11.7%, or of personal equipment, in which the improvement was 3.8%.
By type of establishment, trade fell in November in all areas, although the drop was more pronounced in small establishments and smaller chains, with contractions of between 3.3% and 4.4%. Large chains and supermarkets hold up better, although not much, in which the decrease was between 0.4% and 2.6%.
The data released today has a positive reading when comparing November to October, the previous month. In this case, and if seasonal effects are removed, there has been an improvement of 3.8%, which is also the biggest increase since April. However, last year the rise in November compared to October was greater, at 5.4%.
From the Bank of Spain to the companies themselves are reporting a slowdown in activity in the last months of the year that will not prevent closing a 2022 of growth and that for the moment is not accompanied by a recession in Spain.
In the monthly variation, food did not fare well either, with a drop of 0.2%, compared to the other categories, which rose 5.9%. If calendar effects are corrected, food retail trade was 3.6% lower in November than in October.
The INE also calculates the annual variation rate by autonomous community. It fell in ten of them, especially in Castilla-La Mancha, with a decrease of 4%, followed by the Basque Country and Andalusia, where the decrease was 3.8% and 2.6%. In Catalonia there was a decrease of 1.7%. The highest increases occurred in the Balearic Islands (5.2%), the Canary Islands (2.8%) and Comunidad de Madrid (1%).
