Romania’s retail sales rose 1.5 pct y/y in August, the slowest pace in 3 years

The retail sales, a key index of consumer market, rose by 1.5 percent year-on-year in August in Romania, the slowest pace since March 2015, due mainly to lower fuel sales, according to a National Institute of Statistics (INS) report released on Wednesday.

In the first eight months of this year, the retail trade growth rate slowed down to 5.7 percent, from 6.4 percent in January-July 2018.

Retail trade was sustained in August by food, beverages and tobacco, which rose by 6.1 percent year-on-year, and by sales of non-food products (+3.8 percent).

Sales of fuels declined by 8.3 percent year-on-year in August.

Compared with July, the retail trade declined by 0.1 percent in seasonally adjusted series – the second monthly decline in a row -, but grew by 3.3 percent in gross series.

In 2017, retail sales rose by 10.7 percent in Romania from the previous year.

Romania’s consumer market increased with more than EUR 10 billion in 2017, to EUR 114.8 billion, due mainly to higher wages paid by employers, recent Eurostat data show.

The “final consumption expenditure of households” index, a measure of consumer market, rose from EUR 96.5 billion in 2015 to EUR 104 billion in 2016 and to EUR 114.8 billion in 2017, according to Eurostat statistical series.