Retail sales in Romania return to robust pre-crisis growth rate

The retail sale in Romania posted an impressive 42.7% YoY growth rate in April, mostly as a result of the low base effects created by the lockdown in the same month last year when the sales contracted by 19.4% YoY.

The food sales (still possible during the lockdown) rose by 21% YoY, non-food sales (most of them unavailable during lockdown) surged by 63% YoY and the fuel sales (available in principle, but not needed because of mobility restrictions) advanced by 56% YoY in April 2021.

What is more encouraging is that the annualised growth rate calculated over the past two years, namely the growth from April 2021 compared to April 2019, annualised, which is a measure that filters out the effects of the lockdown last year, has stabilised for the third month around 7.2% (7.3% in April).

This is not far from the trend growth rate in the pre-crisis period, which reached its peak (7.8%) in February 2020.

Technically, the trend growth rate is calculated as the annual growth rate of the 12-month sales, and it smooths volatility.

The trend growth calculated as of April 2021, which still includes base effects, returned to 5.5%, recovering quickly from 0.8% in February.

Considering that the mobility was in April still far from normal, the retail sales’ recovery to robust growth can be described as full, although differentiated among categories of goods.

The two-year annualised growth (7.3% for all categories of goods, in April) was just above average for food goods (+7.5%), well above average (+12.1%) for non-food goods and negative (-1.8%) for fuels.

The outstanding rise in non-food sales reflects robust consumer confidence, and it adds to the macroeconomic confidence indicator compiled based on a poll among CFA analysts, which fully recovered to the past years’ high in May.

(Photo: Wavebreakmedia Ltd./ Dreamstime)