“Although the Romanian economy grew markedly in the past year, Romanian consumers’ economic expectations declined in the fourth quarter by 7.9 points and amounted to 10.6 points in December. One year previously, the indicator was still at 17.7 points,” according to GfK Consumer Climate Europe study for the fourth quarter of 2015.
Consumers’ income expectations were also negatively impacted by the falling economic expectations, as the indicator fell by 6.4 points to 14.9 points compared with the previous quarter, and returned to the same level as the previous year.
Thus, Romanians’ propensity to buy was still low in the fourth quarter, dropping by a further 1.2 points to -7.6 points in December.
In Europe, the refugee crisis, the Paris attacks, and especially the improving economic figures in almost all European countries, as well as the fact that energy costs were still extremely low, were factors which preoccupied consumers and the media in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The EU consumer climate index increased by 1.9 points to 12.2 points between September-December 2015.
The GfK Consumer Climate Europe study is based on the answers of 40,000 people in the 28 EU countries, which are representative of the adult population in the EU.