EUROPEAN COUNTRIES ECONOMIC DATA

There is another busy calendar to end the week onFriday.

Core European data starts at 0600GMT with German retail sales data for August. FSO retail sales are forecast to rise 0.9% m/m, falling0.4% y/y.

French data includes consumer sentiment at 0640GMT and theJuly-August reading of PPI at 0650GMT. Rising employment and falling petrol prices are widely expected to help consumers out of the doldrums and consumer sentiment is forecast to edge up to a reading of -23, while the PPI is forecast to rise 0.4% m/m, 4.0% y/y in July and 0.1% m/m,3.6% y/y for August. Oil price fluctuations explain the expectedacceleration in producer prices in July and the abrupt slowdown inAugust. The persistently high annual rate reflects the accumulated boostfrom energy and more recently from semi-finished goods over the past year.

Further inflation data sees Italian PPI for August at 0800GMT.

There is a raft of UK data due at 0830GMT, including August mortgage approvals, secured lending, final M4 money supply and consumer credit data as well as Q2 balance of payments and the September GfK consumer confidence data.

Eurozone data also sees a string ofreleases at 0900GMT, including the September EMU economic sentimentindex, flash HICP and EMU business climate data, released at the sametime as Italian preliminary HICP/CPI for September. For the EMU data,the economic sentiment index is expected to edge down to 106.2 withconsumer confidence unchanged at -8 and industry confidence slightlylower at +1. Flash HICP is now expected to come in just below the 2%level, at 1.9% y/y.

At 1140GMT, ECB Executive Board member Juergen Starkcloses the National Bank of Poland conference with a talk on "Economic Education: An Important Factor in the Implementation of MonetaryPolicy," in Warsaw.
At 1330GMT, ECB Governing Council member Axel Webergives closing remarks at a conference, in Berlin, while the last of the week's scheduled European speakers is at 1440GMT, when ECB GoverningCouncil member Erkki Liikanen participates in a seminar at theUniversity of Tampere in Finland.