Page 29 - RusRPTOct20
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Russia’s leading shopping malls have made back 85% of the ground they lost during the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic as of week 36 of this year, according to the Watcom Shopping index. However, by week 39 there were the first signs that traffic was falling off again has the coronavirus infection rates in Moscow doubled to over 2,000 cases again.
Retail turnover in the capital’s largest malls collapsed following the imposition of a strict lockdown regime by the city government in May. Sales fell by 74.2% comparedtothesameweekayearearlierattheirnadirinthe16thweekofthe year and remained down by about 60% for the next month and half.
Sales quickly started to recover after the lockdown restrictions were eased but failed to make back all the ground lost, remaining about 20% down on the previous year – which was already a poor year for retail – for the summer months. In the first week of September the index broken into the low teens and was down 14.5% at the end of the first week of September.
The story is similar in St Petersburg where retail sales fell even harder, down 85% y/y in the first week of April and remained down by at least 60% until the middle of June, although the recovery was a bit steadier than in Moscow. And like in Moscow by the end of the first week in September sales were down by 15.8% y/y.
While the retail sector has recovered a lot of its health analysts are expecting the sector’s performance this year to remain below par.
In August, consumer-spending patterns improved only slightly versus July (up 0.2% y/y versus down 0.7%). This was primarily due to spending on services, which fell 17.5% y/y following a 21.6% contraction in July, according to SberIndex.ru.
Food spending growth slowed to 5.6% from 7.2% in July. Non-food spending growth eased to 7.5% from 9.1% in July. Slowing growth in both food and non-food spending indicates that consumer demand likely remained weak in August following the relaxation of the lockdown, which boosted consumer activity in June and July.
29 RUSSIA Country Report October 2020 www.intellinews.com
