![A Japanese walks past a shopwindow of a department store in the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo, capital of Japan, Jan. 20, 2009. Department store sales in Japan shrank by 4.3 percent year-on-year in 2008 to 7.38 trillion yen (US$81 billion), said the Japan Department Stores Association on Monday. [Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/gif/site1007/20090121/0011111fa1560ae0b84003.gif "A Japanese walks past a shopwindow of a department store in the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo, capital of Japan, Jan. 20, 2009. Department store sales in Japan shrank by 4.3 percent year-on-year in 2008 to 7.38 trillion yen (US$81 billion), said the Japan Department Stores Association on Monday. [Xinhua]") |
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A Japanese walks past a shopwindow of a department store in the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo, capital of Japan, Jan. 20, 2009. Department store sales in Japan shrank by 4.3 percent year-on-year in 2008 to 7.38 trillion yen (US$81 billion), said the Japan Department Stores Association on Monday. [Xinhua]
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Department store sales in Japan shrank by 4.3 percent year-on-year in 2008 to 7.38 trillion yen (US$81 billion), said the Japan Department Stores Association on Monday.
It was the 12th straight yearly fall in department store sales, which was calculated on the basis of the total sales at 280 outlets of 91 companies, said the trade body.
The association ascribed the contraction in sales to sluggish sales of clothing, a main sales item for department stores, amid lower consumption.
In December 2008, the figure was down 9.4 percent to 794.7 billion yen from a year earlier, it said.
Tokyo's department store sales, which fell 10.4 percent to 192.8 billion yen in December, dropped 4.1 percent to 1.83 trillion yen in 2008.
