49
Consumption
TAbLe 1 - Total Retail Sales Growth (Quarterly Homologous Growth Rate)
consumers behaivour is also of
%
interest when looking for signs of
50 economic slowdown. In this respect,
the tables presented here suggest two
things. First, some retail indicators,
40 namely those more directly associated
with resident consumers, have been
showing signs of slowing down for
30
some time and secondly, consumers
have not been the main beneficiaries
of the economic boom.
20
TAbLe 1
Table 1 shows the evolution of retail
sales since the beginning of 2005.
10
We have nine quarters of continuous
growth from the beginning of 2005,
followed by neat decreases in the
0
last half year. even if visitor arrivals
05Q1 05Q2 05Q3 05Q4 06Q1 06Q2 06Q3 06Q4 07Q1 07Q2 07Q3 07Q4 08Q1 08Q2 08Q3
and their average expenditure kept
going up - values not shown in the
tables. That suggests a contraction in
domestic consumer’s expenditure.
TAbLe 2
That idea is reinforced by the figures
TAbLe 2 - Retail Sales: Cars and Supermarket expenditures
for the cars and supermarkets
(Quarterly Homologous Growth Rate)
sub-sectors, those less dependent
%
on visitor shopping. cars sales,
60
in particular, have been showing
decreasing growth rates for the
50
last full year; and they registered a
40 significant negative value (-23%) in
30
the last quarter. Similarly, supermarket
sales have started to decline in the
20
current year. However, uniquely for
10 the period considered, the growth
0
rates for quarters two and three did not
increase, which was a relatively stable
-10
seasonal pattern. The growth values
-20
are, nonetheless, still relatively high
and one will have to wait for the data
-30
from the next periods to have a clearer
05Q1 05Q2 05Q3 05Q4 06Q1 06Q2 06Q3 06Q4 07Q1 07Q2 07Q3 07Q4 08Q1 08Q2 08Q3
picture of the trends.
TAbLe 3
Supermarket cars
Finally, Table 3 tells an interesting
story concerning domestic consumers.
Here we have growth indices for
three variables: current consumption
TAbLe 3 - Consumption Growth indices expenditure, real consumption
expenditure and real per capita
2005Q1=100
consumption expenditure.
160
We see that in three years the total
domestic consumption, in nominal
150
terms, has increased more than 50
140
percent. However, if corrected for
inflation, the real growth is only a half
130
of that figure. Keeping in mind the
overall growth of the economy, the
120
result does not look too impressive.
This is true, especially if we take into
110
account the population growth.
100
In rough terms, for most of the period
the real consumption per capita has
90 not changed significantly and appears
05Q1 05Q2 05Q3 05Q4 06Q1 06Q2 06Q3 06Q4 07Q1 07Q2 07Q3 07Q4 08Q1 08Q2 to have stabilized, for the last year, at
values oscillating around 5-7 percent.
c(current) c(real) c(real)/cap.
Which for the period considered is less
than remarkable.
december 2008
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