Belarusians Tightened Their Belts

Retail sales fell by 3.1%, wholesales fell by 9.9% in January-September.

Retail sales amounted to 26,7 billion Belarusian rubles in January-September, 2016, which is, if calculated in comparable prices, 3.1% less than in January-September, 2015, BelaPAN reports, with reference to the National Statistics Committee.

Retail turnover of trade organizations, which share in total retail turnover constitutes 85.2%, amounts to 22.8 billion Belarusian rubles, or 0.1% more in comparable prices, than in similar period of 2015.

The per capita retail trade turnover amounts to 2.8 thousand Belarusian rubles in the current year. In January-September 2015, this figure was 2.7 thousand Belarusian rubles.

In January-September 2016, the wholesale turnover amounted to 48.4 billion Belarusian rubles, which is 9.9% less than in January-September 2015.

Experts link the drop in retail turnover with the drop in the living standards, caused by the recession.

As the website charter97.org has previously reported, the real available monetary incomes of the population of Belarus have dropped by 7.1% in January-August 2016, if compared to the same period last year. This is the deepest drop in incomes over the past 20 months.