German retail data

FRANKFURT: Retailers in Germany clocked up their strongest annual increase in sales in 21 years in 2015, with business expanding by 2.7 per cent, official data showed on Friday. German retail sales, a closely watched measure of household confidence, eased by a fractional 0.2 per cent in December alone, the federal statistics office Destatis calculated in a statement. But retailers’ sales jumped by 2.7 per cent during the whole of 2015, which was the strongest increase since 1994, Destatis said. Consumer sentiment is currently robust in Europe’s biggest economy and domestic demand is the main engine of growth.