High street hit by cold weather, says BRC

The unusually cold spring has hit demand on the high street, with retail spending flat for the second month in a row in April.

The latest figures from the British Retail Consortium showed a weak demand for fashion and footwear, with consumers sticking with their old winter clothes in the face of chilly weather.

“Flat total sales mask a very mixed picture: some retailers benefiting from the healthy housing market, while other are evidently more susceptible to the effects of lower consumer confidence,” BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said.

On a like-for-like basis, sales fell by 0.9 percent in April – their worst performance since August of last year.

Gap narrows between Leave and Remain in the business sector

More business people are planning to vote Leave in the upcoming EU referendum that initially thought, according to the latest survey by the British Chambers of Commerce.

54% of its 2,200 members surveyed in April said they would vote Remain, down from 60% in February’s survey.

37 percent will now be voting to leave, a 7 percent increase on two months ago.

However, 90 percent of those surveyed said they were now unlikely to change their opinion ahead of the vote.

Mixed quarter for German economy, but overall strong

The German economy has had a mixed quarter, with a drop in industrial output offset by a surprising increase in exports.

Industrial output fell 1.3 percent, well above the 0.2 percent forecast by analysts and its biggest decline since August 2014. However, foreign demand from outside the eurozone drove factory orders throughout March, propping up the economy.

Industrial output rose by 1.8 percent overall on the quarter:

“The industrial sector has overcome its foreign trade related weak phase of the second half of 2015,” the Economy Ministry said. “The economic trend in the industrial sector is currently pointing upward.”

10/05/2016