Malta’s retail sales figures continue on their sharp nosedive as the country’s consumer confidence and economic sentiment levels remain at near all-time lows, figures published this week have shown.

Figures published by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, show that Malta’s retail sales are falling much further than those in other EU markets.

Following what was the EU’s sharpest fall in retail sales over last year’s third quarter, a monthly average of 16.6 per cent, the last two months of the year, including the crucial month of December, were no better for Maltese retailers.

Year-on-year comparisons, in fact, place Malta’s retail sales in November down by 17.3 per cent, while those of December had fallen 16.3 per cent below the same month in 2007 – compared with respective EU average falls of 1.4 per cent in each of the two months.

Malta’s consumer confidence level, meanwhile, remains very close to its all-time low. Since March 2008, when the economic crisis began to be felt, consumer economic confidence as a whole, confidence in the financial situation of households and bank savings, has all plummeted. But, on the other hand, employment expectations appear to be improving despite the deterioration of the European and global economic situation that so many jobs in Malta depend upon.

Consumers, according to a recent EU survey, are still planning to make major purchases over the coming 12 months but seem to be putting on the brakes on such purchases to a certain extent for the time being. They also cite consumer prices, which have been dropping over the past 12 months, and that they expect prices to fall further, if only slightly, over the coming year.

While consumer confidence had plunged somewhat drastically between March 2008 and May 2009, the index had improved by three points between April and May. Since March 2008, expectations over the financial situation of households deteriorated from -4 to -28 this month, although the level had improved over that of April, which had stood at -36.

In terms of consumer economic sentiment for the next 12 months, confidence fell from 7 in March 2008 to -28 in May of this year, but still better than April’s -33.