Retail sales rose 7% in 2014 compared with the previous year, after a strong outing in December, Romania’s statistics institute INS said Wednesday.
In the last month of December, retail sales went up 0.3% compared with the previous month in data adjusted for the number of working days and seasonal factors.
Sales of food, beverages and tobacco products were up 2.9% on the month, while fuel sales rose 0.9% compared with November. Sales of non-food items went down 2.9%.
Against December 2013, retail sales went up 6.5%, helped by higher demand in the food and non-food sectors.
Food sales rose 8.2% on the year in December, while non-food sales increased 4.7%. Sales of fuels fell 0.8% year-on-year in December.
For the whole of 2014, food sales were up 10.6%, while sales of non-food products and fuels increased 7.5% and 0.3%, respectively.
In unadjusted data, retail sales were up 7.8% in December from a month earlier, and 6.5% higher compared with the same period of 2013.