For the first quarter of this year, GfK Consumer Confidence Barometer reveals that Romanians’ confidence in the future reaches the highest quotas since the debut of the crisis.
The economic measures started last year continued in the first quarter of 2017: pensions increased by 5 percent, income tax was eliminated for pensions of less than RON 2,000, the minimum income increased by RON 200 and the VAT decreased from 20 to 19 percent.
In the first quarter of the year, the consumer goods market grew by 1.7 percent over the same period last year. The pace of growth seems to slow down starting with the last quarter of 2016. Inflation was constant (+ 1.5 percent for food), while the population continued to prefer more expensive products (uptrade). However, volumes declined for the first time in 2015 by 2.5 percent.
Among the large categories of consumer goods, fresh food remains constant in value. Similarly, personal care products. Those registering increases are packaged food (+ 3 percent), followed by beverages by 2 percent. Campers are home care products, which grew by 7 percent in value, a sign that Romanians pay more attention to home comfort.
At the same time, basic foods such as flour, sugar, rice, cooking oil or margarine continued the downward trend.
In the first quarter of 2017, modern trade reached a market share of 62 percent, gaining about 2 percentage points at the expense of traditional trade. Discounters, supermarkets and modern proximity shops have recorded the highest growth in market share in value, while hypermarkets are affected by the traffic drop.
Private brands have reached almost the same market share as in the first quarter of the previous year (~ 15 percent). Sales for the promotion fell by 0.7 percentage points in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period last year.
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