Retail trade increased by 0.7 percent in the Eurozone and by 0.4 in the European Union, according to data released Thursday by Eurostat, the statistics office of the European Union.

According to the data, food, drinks and tobacco sales decreased both in the Eurozone and the EU, whereas sales of non-food products increased by 0.6 percent and 0.5 percent respectively in the Eurozone and the EU.

Retail sales in Portugal, Spain and Slovenia have respectively increased by 4.8 percent, 3.8 percent, and 3.2 percent.

Luxembourg, UK and Belgium saw decreases of 1.4 percent, 1.1 percent and 0.9 percent respectively.

Experts believe the consecutive growth in sales in July and August indicate consumer confidence is slowly recovering.

However, some believe the number is still far lower than that in 2008.

"I'm certain there was some good news, like in the second quarter of this year, there was a growth in GDP compared to the last year, last quarter. So a very small growth if you observe and also there are a number of so called sentiment indicators like the purchasing manager indices suggesting that slow growth has started. But in general I think this growth will be very very fragile because this growth was largely driven by Germany and France," said Zsolt Darvas, senior researcher with World Bank Lab.

"I think that what happened is probably the recession has bottomed out but I doubt there will be a strong economy growth in the coming years" said Darvas.

Presented by Adam Justice