XN000022-1995-09-26 — Page 12

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Provisional statistics of retail sales for July

According to the provisional figures released today (Tuesday) by the Census and Statistics Department, the value of total retail sales in July 1995, estimated at $17.5 billion, increased by 2% when compared with July 1994. After discounting the effect of price changes over the period, total retail sales dropped by 4% in volume.

The moderate decline in volume of total retail sales in July 1995 continued to be attributable mainly to a significant drop in sales of motor vehicles, by 53% in value or by 57% in volume.

Sales of food, alcoholic drinks and tobacco, and of jewellery, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts also went down, both by 1% in value. In terms of volume, they decreased by 6% and 4% respectively.

Meanwhile, sales of other consumer durable goods and fuels increased by 4% and 1% respectively in value, but decreased by 1% and 5% respectively in volume, Sales in department stores went up by 5% in value but decreased by 4% in volume.

Nevertheless, there were still notable increases in sales of clothing and footwear (21% in value and 9% in volume) and miscellaneous consumer goods (17% in value and 12% in volume). These were faster than the corresponding growth rates in June. Sales in supermarkets rose by 11% in value and 4% in volume.

Compared with June 1995 (but bearing in mind that this comparison may be affected by seasonal factors), total retail sales in July 1995 increased by 6% in both value and volume.

Comparing the period from January to July 1995 with the same period in 1994, total retail sales rose by 5% in value, but dropped by 1% in volume.

The volume of retail sales is derived from the value of retail sales after adjusting for price changes. The relevant components of the Consumer Price Index are used as deflators.

Table 1 presents the revised total retail sales figure for June 1995 and the provisional figure for July 1995.

Table 2 shows the value and volume indices of retail sales in June and July 1995 for all retail outlets and by type of retail outlet, with average retail sales from October 1989 to September 1990 taken as 100.