BERLIN, Oct 1 - German retail sales in August fell by a worse than expected 0.2 percent month-on-month and by 4.9 percent on the year in real terms, preliminary data from the Federal Statistics Office showed on Wednesday. Analysts polled by had forecast sales would be flat month-on-month and would fall one percent on the year. According to the data, based on figures from seven German states accounting for 84 percent of total retail sales, sales in nominal terms were down 0.3 percent from July and down 4.7 percent from August 2002.
Retail sales in the first eight months of the year fell by 0.8 percent in real terms and by 0.9 percent in nominal terms versus the same period a year ago, the statistics office said. The office said sales of food, beverages and tobacco goods were down 2.4 percent in August compared with a year earlier in real terms and down 1.6 percent in nominal terms. Sales of textiles, shoes and clothing fell 11.5 percent on the year in real terms and were 12.5 percent lower in nominal terms. The overall drop in sales was in line with data on Monday from Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia, which showed retail sales fell 5.1 percent year on year in August.//