Retail sales in Ukraine advance 12.5% in January

Ukraine retail sales advanced 12.5% yoy in real
terms in January, keeping the same growth pace as in the previous month,
Ukraine’s State Statistics Service reported on Feb. 20. In month-to-month
terms, retail declined 21.9% in real terms.

Regionally, the highest retail growth in January
occurred in Zaporizhzhia (17.7% yoy), Ternopil (17.4% yoy), and Kirovohrad
(16.0% yoy) regions. It was the slowest in Ukraine-controlled Luhansk (5.8%
yoy) and Donetsk (10.3% yoy) as well as in the Chernihiv (8.4% yoy) regions.

Evgeniya Akhtyrko: Significantly
cooling inflation helps to
maintain the high growth rate of real retail sales. As a remarkable
development, January’s growth in retail sales across different regions was much
more even, as compared to the previous year when amid the overall strong retail
growth there were regions with negative results.

We expect real retail to
increase 8-9% yoy in 2020 (vs. 10.5% yoy in 2019).