Sars has had a similarly debilitating effect in the Far East

Sars has had a similarly debilitating effect in the Far East.More recently, there has been a currency impact since around two-thirds of its sales are overseas, as well as competitive pressures from China and rising wool prices. The wool from one in eight UK sheep ends up in a Brinton carpet, apparently.Then there is the cyclical nature of the industry. “Every time there’s a recession, carpets get hard hit,” Mr Brinton says, noting that sales are also obviously linked to the housing market. Add the changing trends in home furnishings to the mix — many people have taken up the carpets in their homes and put down wooden floors — and you find a business that has seen better times.It all helps explain why the company sank into the red in the year to 29 June, with an operating loss of £1.2m against a profit of £7.3m the year before. Michael Brinton, the chairman of Brintons, the Kidderminster-based carpet company, has turned to Manolo Blahnik, the shoe designer, for a spot of advertising help. Eurozone – Producer prices (Nov); Unemployment (Nov); ECB interest rate announcement.

US – weekly jobless claims; wholesale inventories (Nov).FRIDAY: UK – trade in goods and services (Nov). Eurozone – German trade balance (Nov), manufacturing orders (Nov) US – Non-farm payrolls (Dec); Average earnings (Dec).. US – ISM non-manufacturing index (Dec); Manufacturing orders (Nov).WEDNESDAY: Eurozone – Business confidence (Dec); Consumer confidence (Dec).THURSDAY: UK – Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee interest rate announcement. Eurozone – Services PMI (Dec); France – GDP final revision (Q3).

The builder – which does a third of its business in Ireland – boosted profits by a third in the year to last April and its interim results are expected to show continued strong growth, thanks to buoyant housing markets.ECONOMICS DIARYTODAY: Eurozone – HICP inflation (Dec).TOMORROW: UK – M0 money supply (Dec); Services PMI (Dec); CBI distributive trades survey (Dec). In December, the MPC voted eight-to-one to hold rates after the increase in November, saying they needed more time to examine its effect on the debt-burdened consumer.The one results statement pencilled in so far for this week is that of Abbey on Thursday. Most economists expect there will be no change to the base rate of 3.75 per cent.There will be last-minute data on the services sector and the trade deficit, but expectations are that a continued strengthening by the PMI survey of service sector optimism will be counter-balanced by flat retail sales, as measured by the CBI, suggesting a relative cooling off by the consumer. The little housebuilder got its knickers in a twist over Abbey National’s decision to rebrand its high street banks as plain Abbey, but this is unlikely to have had any effect on the Abbey plc results. At the time of its last update, sales for the year to date had reached £289.4m, up 7 per cent at constant currency rates, but less than 4 per cent ahead of the comparable period in sterling terms.Outside the retail sector, there are trading updates this week from Travis Perkins, the building materials group, on Wednesday; Kidde, the fire safety equipment group, on Thursday; and Interserve, the building and maintenance group, on Friday.It is also the week of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting, which makes its monthly pronouncement on interest rates on Thursday.

Hopes have been raised by a bumper Christmas for UK rival Goldsmiths, but Signet has more than 70 per cent of its business in the US, so the decline of the dollar will be a drag on the reported numbers. Potential suitors, including the likes of Tom Hunter and the Icelandic retailer Baugur, will want to see how trading has been over the Christmas period, and the consensus is for flat or slightly lower like-for-like sales.On the same day, Big Food Group, owner of the Booker cash-and-carry group and Iceland, has a trading update due. Food sales seem to have been one of the sector’s highlights over the festive period and Iceland is slowly but surely pulling itself from the malaise of the past few years. The group is sprucing up its stores and enjoying improved sales at the new formats as a result although, the last we heard, it seemed that unconverted stores were still in gentle decline.Also on Thursday, Signet reports its latest sales figures. Slated to produce sales figures is House of Fraser, the department store group, which is once again on high bid alert following rumours last week.