Good afternoon and welcome to all of you attending this audio webcast of Logista first half results of fiscal y ear 2020. My name is Manuel Suárez, CFO of the company, and with me is Gloria Martín, Investor Relations Director. To follow the results, I will go through the presentation using your screens, and in the meanwhile, we will continue receiving your questions that, together with those received during the morning, will be answered at the end. I invite you to read the disclaimer included in the second slide of the presentation regarding forecasts, estimates, and forward-looking statements. There are three main topics I would like to highlight in our results. First, there is a recurring activity performing in line with what was expected.
Second, a negative impact of the tobacco taxes and retail sales prices that brought a negative result this year to be compared with a positive one in the first semester of 2019. And third, the impact in the month of March of the coronavirus crisis. All this together caused that, in the period, revenues have grown in all regions, while economic sales did it in Italy and Spain, offsetting the negative ones in France. Altogether, adjusted EBIT decreased by 11%, a percentage that practically goes to the net income as a consequence of lower restructuring expenses and a higher tax rate. Let me give you now a brief overview of the performance by geography that I will detail later.
Iberia evolution in the period is marked by a pretty good trend in our convenience and pharma business, while transport has kept growing in parcel and courier, being more stable in the part of the business more related to tobacco. The COVID-19 crisis is impacting the most to book distribution and transport, while tobacco taxes and prices have not played any role in none of both periods. In France, tobacco volumes continued showing a steady decreasing trend, in line with what we saw in previous periods, a consequence of retail sales prices increases, offsetting tax ones. Most of the tax increase this year has already passed to prices, except the last movements that are still pending, causing, at the end of the period, a negative impact in results. There is a clear weaker activity in the convenience distribution to other channels with the anti-COVID measures.
In Italy, the impact of these measures has been of lower importance. Convenience business has kept its rhythm of double-digit growth, and tobacco volumes have been stable. All this masked by the delay of tobacco manufacturers, passing tax increases to the retail sales prices of their products, causing a negative impact. Going into a deeper analysis by country now, in Iberia, Tobacco and related has shown a 5.7% growth, a consequence of the positive tobacco volumes evolution in Spain, growing market share in Portugal, a very good trend in convenience, and stable tobacco prices and tax scenarios in both periods. COVID-19 affected in March mainly a decrease in consumption and a switch of vending channels in Portugal from vending machines to petrol stations.
In transport, economic sales grew 3%, being stable in long haul and showing growth in the other two, which is a different pattern of what was observed after the lockdown began, when both parcel and courier have started to show a slower activity. In the other businesses, where we report the activity of pharma and editorial distribution, economic sales have decreased by 2 million EUR, a consequence of the continuous growth of pharma activity, double-digit in revenues masked by the ceasing of a service to a customer relevant in economic sales terms but not in results, and the difficult evolution of the publications sector. Here, the impact of the lockdown measures is important in the case of the editorial sector, unless in the case of pharma.
Also, there are still some track and trace agreements pending to be finalized, while the services are being fully provided, allowing room for improvement in the second semester. In total, the impact of lockdown measures can be estimated in EUR 3 million in Iberia, while there were no one-offs due to tobacco retail sales price changes. EBIT in France has been reduced in one-third, a consequence of a continuous decrease in tobacco volumes derived from the steady tax increases that have required this year a retail sales price increase of EUR 1 to offset it, EUR 0.50 in November and EUR 0.50 in March. This year, there has been also the transformation of the Contribution Sociale into excise taxes, which would require an additional increase of EUR 0.20.
At the end of the period, not all manufacturers had passed all these tax increases to selling prices, and this compares to the previous year when tobacco manufacturers increased the retail sales prices of their products more than the tax increases in the period, having in H1 2019 a positive impact from this issue. In contrast, both e-transaction and convenience sales in this channel had a positive evolution. In the other businesses, where the underlying trend was already weak, the lockdown measures have impacted in an estimated 35% in the period, a consequence mainly of the closing of points of sale. Cost had, in general, a normal trend affected by inflationary pressure in transport and insurance, while providing room for improvement in track and trace timing differences. COVID-19 measures have had a negative impact, estimated in EUR 1.5 million in our businesses in France.
Italy had, in the period, an Adjusted EBIT increase of 1.4%, even having this year an important negative effect of tobacco tax price movements, a consequence of tobacco manufacturers not translating into prices all tax movements. Moreover, this compares to the previous year, when the effect of this phenomenon was clearly positive. Tobacco volumes were rather stable, and the trend in services rendered to manufacturers and in convenience products has been clearly a growing one. Cost has behaved in line with Economic Sales evolution out of the extra cost due to COVID-19 impact, whose whole effect can be estimated in this country in EUR one million. The P&L of the period reflects what we have commented at the beginning: slow growth in recurring operations masked by the lockdown and tobacco tax price movements.