Romania’s retail sales post impressive 6.6% y/y advance in January

Retail sales in Romania increased by 6.6% y/y in January, one of the highest rates in the post-COVID period and four times the revised average growth in 2023 (+1.6% y/y), according to data released by the statistics office INS.

In seasonally adjusted terms, Romania’s retail sales marked an impressive 3.8% m/m advance from December.

Private consumption is expected to be a major growth driver in Romania this year, and January figures are fully consistent with this.

The annual growth figure was dragged down by the sluggish sales of car fuels (+1.6% y/y), while the combined sales of food and non-food goods surged by +7.7% y/y in January. In seasonally adjusted terms, the advance was +4.1% m/m.

The non-food sales, a good indicator for households’ confidence, surged by 12.2% y/y (+8.0% m/m), nearly 10pp more than the 2.8% y/y average advance seen in 2023 (notably revised downward from +3.8% y/y). The performance comes after the net average wage topped the EUR 1,000 threshold in December, and the average net wages increased by +8.2% y/y in real terms in Q4.

Food sales increased by only 2.7% y/y (+0.1% m/m) in January, compared to a 3.5% y/y average advance in 2023.

The sales of car fuels have increased, in seasonally adjusted terms, by 3.8% in December-January – but they are still only 1.6% larger than they were in January 2023 and 0.8% smaller than in January 2022.

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