Slovak retail sales continued their steep fall. However, such a huge fall in March was surprising

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Investiční bankovnictví KB

      Retail sales continued in its significant fall and dropped by huge -11.8% y/y in March. The negative development was expected as retail sales are negatively influenced by consumer sentiment. Negative effect comes primarily from the huge deregulations. However, the two-digit number is a surprise. The dynamics was slightly affected by a higher statistical base in March last year. The biggest fall was recorded within sales of specialized items (-19.0%). Additionally, sales of food and beverages fell significantly, by –17.1% y/y. However, the biggest negative effect came form a deterioration within non-specialized sales, which dropped from –0.2% in February to –17.7% y/y in March. On the other hand, we have seen also a growing sector- pharmaceutical and cosmetic items gained +26.3% and sales out of shops 19.8%. But, the effect of these sectors is small. Another important sector is car sales and maintenance, which recorded another slowdown from +10.9% seen in February to just +3.9% y/y in March. The overall retail sales development remains in negative territory, however, we do not assess it as a crisis. The positive outcome of these numbers would be seen in the better GDP growth structure for the rest of 2003.

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