A recent survey says that due to the economic slowdown the sales of major retailers in UAE have gone down by 20 to 30 percent.

The personal income has also fallen because of the loss of jobs and cuts in the salaries and commissions.

JP Nambiar, head of retail at Jumbo Electronics said: "Since the onset of the downturn retail demand has weakened. Consumers are hunkering down as they try to repair their personal balance sheets."

The survey has reported that of the 18 major retailers, 38.9 percent said that their sales have gone down between 11-20 percent; where as 27.7 percent mentioned that their sales were down by 5 to 10 percent.

Last month, Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence report for the second quarter reported that 45 percent of UAE consumers were certain that the country shall come out of the recession in another one year; marking a 13 percent increase in confidence.

The poll conducted by The Emirates Business has shown that only 11.1 percent of retailers are unaffected by the economic slowdown and are yet to see any cut back in the spending by the customers.

However, all the retailers were unanimous in saying that the growing number of malls in the country is going to affect their profitability.