Ukraine retail sales maintain 3% yoy growth in 1H20

Ukraine retail sales advanced 3.0% yoy in real terms
in 1H20, slowing slightly from 3.1% yoy growth in 5M20, Ukraine’s State
Statistics Service reported on July 21. In June, retail sales inched up 1.4%
yoy (vs. a 3.1% yoy decline in May), and advanced 8.8% m/m in real terms.

Regionally, the highest retail growth in 1H20 occurred
in the Kyiv (11.5% yoy), Zaporizhzhia (9.1% yoy) and Kirovohrad (8.7% yoy)
regions. The major outsiders were Zakarpattia (-10.6% yoy), Chernivtsi (-9.8%
yoy), Rivne and Lviv (-0.8% yoy) regions.

Evgeniya Akhtyrko: It was
encouraging to see that retail recovered right after the restriction on retail
trade was removed. This implies that the changes in the disposable income of
Ukrainians as a result of the corona crisis were not significant enough to
reduce their consumption behavior.

The positive trends in trade might serve as the
single offsetting factor to the economic recession since the situation in other
sectors doesn’t look very promising.