Retail sales growth decelerated to 2.2% in June 2001, a shade below our forecast of a 3% growth. The rate is the slowest this year except for miserable February growth of 0.4%. The growth rate reached 3.6% in first six months of 2001, significantly below 5.6% growth in the same period of 2000. We, however, maintain our forecasts that growing wages will drive retail sales higher. Indeed, we expect that The July's retail sales should grow by more than 5%. For the second half of this year we forecast 4.5-5.0% growth that will bring the total 2001's growth to 4.2%, almost identical to last year's 4.1%.
(Martin Kupka)