Updated, adds PL statement - Data released by Eurostat, issued today, showed that retail sales in Malta were continuing to shrink rather than grow, the PN said in a statement.
"This is worrying for the nation’s self-employed and raises concern on the consumers’ spending power. Like for like, retail sales in Malta during December 2014 fell by 1.4 per cent when compared to the same month of the previous year. Malta is singled out as one of the worst performing countries from the EU 28 countries which provided the data. Retail trade in the Euro area increased by 2.8% in December 2014 when compared to the previous year," PN deputy leader Mario de Marco said.
Even more worryingly, he added, if one had to exclude fuel and motor vehicles from the calculations, the drop in retail sales in volume would be even higher, reaching 6.5%.
"This puts Malta at the wrong end of the European Union league table in as far as retail sales is concerned."
He said the government was refusing to even acknowledge that a problem existed.
"The government is also being selective in quoting data, in its effort to paint an image that all is well. Quoting a recent NSO publication, Government abstained from providing detailed explanation that the reported growth in turnover by retail and wholesale sector is subject to artificially inflated prices of fuel, which according to the statistical classification feeds in both the wholesale and retail sector."
He said the Opposition was reiterating its call for a serious debate on the economy and on public finances. It was also calling on the government to come up with concrete plans and actions to help those sectors of the economy that are seeing their competitive edge being eroded.
The government should also, with immediate effect lower the prices of petrol and diesel, which are currently fourth highest in Europe.
PL: Oil prices excluded from EU data
In a reaction, the Labour Party said that contrary to what the PN had said, the data issued by Eurostat did not include fuel prices.
The document actually stated that: "The index of the volume of retail trade measures the evolution of the turnover in retail trade, adjusted for price changes (deflated), i.e. the evolution of the total amount of goods sold".
The reality was, the PL said, that in December 2014, the value of retail trade was 4.4% higher than in December 2012, when the PN was in government. .
The results achieved by Malta were higher than the EU average between December 2012 and December 2014. The EU index inproved by 2.7% and Malta’s by 4.4%.
As a result of the progress, jobs in wholesale and retail were increasing every month and now reached 12,780 from 11,969 under the PN (full-time jobs excluding vehicle sales).
The number of part-timers rose by 966.