Finland Times

By contrast, wholesale trade sales contracted by 2.1 per cent in the month from the year before. The contraction in wholesale trade also pushed total trade sales to a fall of 0.5 per cent.

The retail trade sales went up by 0.4 per cent this July compared to July 2014, the statistics show.

The growth in retail trade was influenced by sales in department store trade, which increased by 2.6 per cent from the year before.

In contrast, daily consumer goods trade went down by 2.2 per cent year-on-year.

In retail trade, the sales volume increased by 1.7 per cent in July and in motor vehicle sales by 4.7 per cent from July 2014.

The first registrations of motor vehicles also increased by 3.2 per cent year-on-year in July, according to the data.

The sales volume in wholesale trade increased, in turn, by 0.6 per cent from twelve months earlier. The volume of total sales was thus 1.6 per cent higher in July than one year earlier.

In all sectors of trade the turnover developed more weakly in July than the sales volume, due to fallen prices. The volume index of sales is calculated by removing the effect of price changes from the value index series.

In the January to July period, sales contracted by 0.9 per cent in retail trade and by 4.1 per cent in wholesale trade compared to the corresponding period of 2014. In turn, motor

vehicle sales remained on level with the January to July period of 2014.

The total trade sales, however, went down by 2.6 per cent over the corresponding period.