Booming sales of furniture and electrical goods

The volume index for retail sales of lighting, kitchen equipment, furniture and interior items rose 15.4 per cent in January 1998 compared to January 1997.

The volume index for retail sales excluding motor vehicles and gasoline rose 5.3 per cent from January 1997 to January 1998. The seasonally adjusted volume index for retailing was 108.2 per cent in January 1998, an increase of 1.3 per cent from December 1997.

The volume index for retailing of other new goods went up 12.4 per cent. This business group includes clothing, shoes, electrical goods, furniture, hardware, paint and building materials. Volume sales of non-specialized stores rose 1.7 per cent in the same period. This business group mainly includes food, beverages and tobacco.

Goods consumption index

Corrected for normal seasonal variations, the goods consumption index declined 2.4 per cent from December to January. The deviation compared to the seasonally adjusted index of retail sales can be attributed to the relatively strong decline in car sales and in the consumption of heating fuel. The seasonally corrected goods consumption index in January 1997 was down 3.4 per cent from December 1966.

New Statistics

Index of retail sales, January 1998.

Statistics are published every month in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. For more information, contact: Solveig Nygårdseter, tel. +47 62 88 51 74, e-mail: snl@ssb.no, or Rune Sønsterudbråten, tel. +47 22 62 88 54 37, e-mail: rso@ssb.no. For more information about the goods consumption index, contact: Kristian Gimming, tel. +47 21 09 44 17, e-mail: kgi@ssb.no, or Grethe Sagen, tel. +47 21 09 46 99, gsa@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 11, 1998