German retail sales fall in April

Retail sales in Germany decreased more sharply than expected in April, official data showed on Friday. Retail sales fell by 0.4 percent in April compared with March in price, seasonally and calendar-adjusted terms, according to provisional figures by the federal statistics office Destatis. The previous month, retail sales had slipped by a revised 0.1 percent and analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected unchanged sales this month. On a 12-month basis, however, retail sales increased by 1.8 percent in April, but that was partly because there were two more shopping days in April this year than in the same month last year, the statisticians noted. Monthly retail sales data are volatile and subject to frequent revision.