ZAGREB, October 16, 2019 – EU retail trade is growing, boosted by price growth, while sound quantity growth is spurred by Eastern Europe, including Croatia, a conference organised by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) and Suvremena Trgovina magazine was told in Zagreb on Wednesday.
“Retail trade growth is generated solely by price growth. The three percent growth in the second quarter of 2019 was due to price growth, while quantity growth, which indicates the health of retail trade, is stagnating in Europe,” said Jelena Doko Cetina, commercial leader at the global data analytics company Nielsen.
She noted that the stagnation was coming from Western European countries, where people were increasingly turning to food consumption away from the home, while Eastern Europe, including Croatia, was recording retail sales growth.
“Globally, we can say that consumers are feeling optimistic. The situation in Europe is slightly more realistic, as we are slightly more inclined to pessimism, primarily because we are more cautious with our finances,” Doko Cetina said.
The HGK vice-president for trade and finance, Josip Zaher, said that in the first eight months of 2019 retail trade in the EU grew by 2.7 percent on average compared with the same period last year, while Croatia recorded a rise in retail trade of 5 percent.
Mario Antonić, state secretary at the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts, said that accession to the European Union had given Croatia great opportunities as well as great competition which in turn brought about many challenges. “There is no longer a national, but only a global market,” he said.
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