Romanian consumers spent almost 120 billion lei (EUR27 billion) on food, clothing, home appliances, furniture and fuel last year, 0.5% more than in 2012, after December turned the stagnation of the first eleven months into a slight increase.
About EUR10 billion or 38% of the total went towards non-food products, such as furniture, cosmetics, home appliances and computer and electronic products, as well as pharmaceuticals, ZF has calculated based on the National Statistics Institute data. Romanian consumers spent EUR9.6 billion on food.
“We had the best December in five years. We could feel a strong rise in consumer spending in December compared with December 2012,” said Dan Ostahie, the owner of the leading computer and electronics retailer in Romania, which posted over EUR250 million revenue in 2012, according to the latest available data.
“The rebound may be because of the rise in consumer loans, on the one hand, and because of the improvement in purchasing power, on the other. There was more money on the market.”
The National Statistics Institute announced on Monday that retail sales, the best indicator of the consumer spending trend, rose 0.5% (unadjusted data) last year, after a surge of 6.7% in December. The last month of 2013 helped consumer spending pick up, after January-November figures showed a 0.1% decline.
Cristian Rusu, the owner of the Rus Savitar furniture maker, which operates the Casa Rusu furniture retail chain said December was “an unexpectedly good month”, with sales surging 40% on the year-ago month.
“This was the best December in the history of Casa Rusu (the company has been operating under this brand since 2009 i.e.). I was surprised,” Rusu told ZF.
“Usually sales drop after December 15, but we sold up to Christmas Eve. Sales were good even after December 26 until December 31.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)