CANBERRA: Economists are hopeful that a reasonable Christmas shopping period will make for a constructive quarter of consumer spending and help stave off fears of a recession, despite a stumble in retail sales over November. Seasonally adjusted retail spending was $25.66 billion in November, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, an increase of 0.2 per cent on the previous month. That came in short of the consensus economists forecast of a 0.4 per cent gain and followed a rise of 0.5 per cent in October.
The picture was mixed across categories. Food sales volumes, up 0.4 per cent over the month, and clothing, up 1.7 per cent, did well. But revenues of cafes and restaurants sunk 0.8 per cent, and department store sales fell 0.3 per cent. By state, reasonable gains in NSW and Victoria were offset by a decline in sales in Western Australia and South Australia, while Queensland was marginally higher. After growing by 0.6 per cent in August and September, and by a still robust 0.5 per cent in October, “some slowdown seemed inevitable”, Capital Economics economist Kate Hickie said. And if retail sales could manage to rise modestly over December, then real consumption growth – which fed into GDP growth – could rebound to 0.7 per cent over the final three months of 2016, from 0.4 per cent in the previous quarter.
