Shopping Climate Index CEE 4/09

The Shopping Climate Index CEE has continued to rise in the 4th quarter this year and is now at approx. 60 index points (100 = average). Overall the shopping climate still is not the best. The average index of 100 cannot be reached by any of the CEE countries. A year ago all countries, with the exception of Hungary were above the 100 mark.

The development in the individual CEE countries varies greatly. Especially countries that experienced the greatest retail decline in the last months seem to face a small recovery now. This includes countries like Latvia and Lithuania, Ukraine and Montenegro. However the development of retail trade turnover still must be considered sceptically. Forecasts for retail trade turnover growth are around -3% to -6 %.

Negative developments in the Shopping Climate Index are shown for Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus and Moldova. Also in Bosnia the index is very low with only 22,5. An important factor here is the low purchasing power due to high unemployment.

A favorable development of the shopping climate can be seen in Romania, Croatia and Turkey. The best shopping climate can still be found in Austria which targets the "normal" value of 100 points again. Also Cyprus and Poland are moving foreward.

When watching the indicators for the Shopping Climate Index one can expect that the more "western" countries like Poland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary will reach a long-term normal value within the next six months. For all other countries this process will take longer, especially in Moldova, Albania and Belarus.