“We noticed a slight increase in consumer spending in January to June,” said Sotirios Marinidis, the Greek executive who has been in charge of the local operations of Procter&Gamble for almost three years.
The good news is that, although slight, the increase of the last few months is steady, Marinidis added, saying he believed the trend would maintain over the coming months.
His statement is corroborated by the Statistics Institute data showing that retail sales rose by 3.6% in the first four months of 2012, after shrinking by about 20% in the three years before that.
P&G continued to grow during Marinidis term despite consumer spending decline. Its revenue went up by 7% to more than EUR300 million in 2010. Marinidis says the growth in 2011 was in single digits, and expects the same for this year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)