Romania’s retail sales rose 6.7 pct y/y in April

The retail sales, a key index of consumer market, rose by 6.7 percent year-on-year in April, boosted by Easter holidays, according to a National Institute of Statistics (INS) report released on Tuesday.

In the first four months of this year, the retail trade growth rate accelerated to 6.5 percent, from 6.3 percent in January-April 2017.

Retail trade was sustained in April by fuel sales, which rose by 11.2 percent year-on-year, and by non-food products (+8.1 percent).

Sales of food, beverages and tobacco increased by 2.7 percent year-on-year in April.

Compared with March, the retail trade grew by 1.7 percent in seasonally adjusted series and by 5.4 percent in gross series, a normal trend for the Easter holidays.

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.