Retailing (Germany):
Expectations continue to improve

In retailing the business situation continued to improve, with positive and negative judgments balancing out. A worsening in the non-food sector was offset by an im-provement in the food and beverage sector. The outlook for the coming months was generally appraised more favourably, however. But since inventory pressure has abated only slightly, more firms now intend to restrict their ordering activity. Food retailers especially still expect increasing prices, although the number of re-tailers with these expectations has declined. There was little change in personnel plans: on balance, 8% of the firms expect a decline in the number of employees (previous year: 18%). The surveyed retailers in eastern Germany reported a clear worsening of the busi-ness situation. Although the outlook is no longer quite so unfavourable, in view of increasing inventory pressure order plans are now more contractive. Neverthe-less, the survey firms see improved chances of raising their prices.