Countries across the European continent have had a rough couple of years. The economic recession that took hold of the world resulted in high unemployment rates, declines in consumer spending and general negative outlooks for many European nations. As the slow recovery continues to spread throughout the region, there have been some signs of improvement, and one of these is recent data related to retail sales.

According to The Wall Street Journal, research from Eurostat revealed that retail sales in countries with the euro as currency increased 1 percent between April and May. Although the figure is not large by any means, the rise comes after sales fell 0.2 percent during the two previous months, and it was welcome news by analysts who had predicted a much lower gain, the source explained.

The increased retail sales could be pointing to further economic improvement in the coming months, although analysts stated that there is still a long way to go in terms of getting back to pre-recession levels, the source noted.

"Spending will be soft in the coming months as … households face a number of headwinds that will keep discretionary spending muted for some months," Anna Zabrodska, an economist at Moody's, told the source.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 at 4:27 am .