Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from John Faucher, JPMorgan. Your line is open.
John Faucher - JPMorgan
Yes. Thank you very much. A quick question, as you look across the weakness on the developed markets and I know you sort of talked about this. Can you focus on sort of how long-term you think these problems are? You know it seems like everyone is surprised by the weakness generally in the more developed markets. Is this a permanent retrenchment from the consumer or do you think we will see a fairly quick snap back when the economies normalize?
Muhtar Kent
Yes John, good morning. I think you've got to look at it this way. Firstly, there is a lag between the macro economic growth coming back and consumer sentiments, and I think that we don't really all know how long that lag is, but there is a lag. And give you an example of Japan, although we've heard some positive news about the macro trends in Japan, when you look at the consumer psyche, when you look at supermarket spend in Japan over the last quarter is minus 7%, department stores down 16%, household expenditures down 3.5%. There's is some significant weak consumer sentiment.
On the other hand, we see exports beginning to rebound. And I think, we will all watch and see how long this consumer sentiment is going to remain depressed and pressure on household expenditures. Similar -- not quite the same story in Europe, but I think Europe is a tale of two cities, Eastern Europe, Russia as well as, Central and Eastern Europe, very, very poor. But when you look at some key European marketplaces like, Belgium that was up 6% for us in this last quarter, Netherlands was up 4%, France was up 3, Italy was up 2, Germany up 1.
So you see a different kind of consumer out there in terms of how they feel about their future and how they feel about their pocket book. No question that consumers have shifted their spending, spending more time at home, patterns of consumption are changing, restaurants are under a lot of pressure. But you've got Spain and really the worst kind of economic situation in Western Europe, together with Eastern Europe and you’ve got some others like I have just mentioned in a fairly good space.
I still believe that, the US is going to have to pull the general consumer sentiment up in the world, and the US consumers resiliency, we will probably see that happening. But I just don't have an idea about the timing and how that’s going to occur in terms of exact timing. But there is a lag, I want to stress between macro trends that we are beginning to see some improvements in the recent IMS report, that significantly up the anti for macro growth trends for 2010 and the consumer sentiments.
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