By Xavier Fontdegloria

Retail sales in Italy swung to decline in January as coronavirus restrictions continued to hinder the activity of nonessential stores, data from the country's statistics agency Istat showed Friday.

The retail-trade index fell 3% on month in January after rising 2.4% in December. This was notably worse than the 1.6% drop forecast by economists polled by FactSet.

On a year-on-year basis, Italian retail sales fell 6.8% in January, the third consecutive month of decline, the data showed.

Italy's economy, the third largest in the eurozone, contracted by 1.9% in the fourth quarter from the previous one. Economists expect that the extension of lockdowns at the beginning of the year will likely lead to another quarter of GDP contraction in 1Q.

Write to Xavier Fontdegloria at xavier.fontdegloria@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 05, 2021 04:50 ET (09:50 GMT)