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Over the last few years the chemical industry in Germany has worked for and achieved clear advantages in global competition, so the German chemical industry association (VCI) in a press conference in Frankfurt. Since the start of the upswing in 2003, annual growth in the German chemical industry averaged over 4 percent and was thus much more dynamic than in the chemical industries of the USA, Japan or other EU Member States - where the annual growth rate averaged only 2.6 percent in the period from 2003 to 2007.

In May 2008, compared with April 2008, the volume of retail traden May 2008, compared with May 2007, the retail sales index rose by 0.2% in the euro area and by 2.0% in the EU27.

The Irish economy is moving closer to recession, and now economists say that Denmark, Portugal, Italy and Spain are hovering on the brink as the European Central Bank prepares to lift rates by 0.25% to 4.25%.