GKI: Will there be growth in retail this year?

Between 2017 and 2019, retail sales increased by 20% in value and 13% in volume. Monthly growth was 7.6% in January 2020 and 11.3% in February, partly due to panic purchases due to the coronavirus. Overall, this represented an increase of 14.5% in value and 9.5% in volume in the first two months of 2020.

This impressive growth may be enough to keep the volume of retail sales positive throughout 2020. This is due to a slowdown in real household income growth due to the virus (redundancies, wage cuts, reductions in working hours and soaring consumer price index, etc.) and a significant drop in turnover due to curtailment restrictions and limited retail opening hours ( eg fuel retail), in some cases (eg car dealerships).