EU-DIGEST

Britain - Shop till you drop: Australian developer launches Europe's largest shopping complex in West London

Australia's Westfield Group has opened the biggest shopping centre in Europe, spending euro 2.08 billion (US $ 2.65b) on the project in West London. It is to be proceeded by an even bigger development by Westfield at the 2012 Olympic Site in East London. The timing is unfortunate given the fact that Britain is on the brink of recession and that consumer spending it set to fall in the next 12 months after a decade of solid growth.It is to be proceeded by an even bigger development by Westfield at the 2012 Olympic Site in East London.

Labels: Britain, Consumerism, EU, Retailing

EU to step up monitoring of retail market as food prices increase disproportionately .

The European Commission said it will monitor retail markets as global food prices continue to rise and said short-term measures would not solve the problem. 'The commission will step up its monitoring of the retail market, because bear in mind that certain food price increases do not reflect corresponding increases in raw material prices,' commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberger said. He added that in certain parts of Europe the price of bread has risen by as much as 20 percent -- even though raw material costs have only gone up by 4-5 percent.

Labels: Economy, EU, Retail Market, Retailing

Germany - Discounters set to claim half of German grocery sales

A combination of the 2007 VAT hike and the discounter boom that has spread like wildfire from grocery to other sectors is severely impacting Germanys retailing landscape, reveals a new report by Verdict Research. For the first time since 2002 the sector contracted, posting a decline of 0.9%. With a current value of 354bn, the overall retail market in Germany has receded back to what it was in 2005 meaning expenditure has been similar to that seen at the tail end of the last recession in the country. As a direct result of extremely tough trading conditions the wheels of the consolidation bandwagon have begun to turn and looking ahead Verdict Research expects more retailers to jump on.

Labels: EU, Germany, Retailing

Retailing - Birth, death and shopping

Gruen wanted to improve upon the American city center by modernizing and Europeanizing it. Mr Caruso, by contrast, looks to the past. He has tried to re-create a kind of prelapsarian downtown where there is no crime or homelessness. His romantic evocations of city centres are possible only because people have forgotten what downtowns used to be like. And they have forgotten, of course, largely because of the suburban shopping malls that Gruen built. It was necessary to kill the American city center before bringing it back to life.

Labels: EU, Retailing, US