Retail sales volume in Hungary continued to fall at a sharp calendar year-adjusted real 7.3pc rate in September year-on-year, the Central Statistics Office (KSH) said on Monday.
It fell 7.2pc yr/yr in August, and 6.6pc in July, after a moderate 2.3pc yr/yr drop in June. Twelve-month retail sales have fallen every month since February 2007.
In a month-on-month comparison, retail sales fell 0.5pc according to seasonally- and calendar-year-adjusted figures, after a 0.8pc decline in August and a deeper, 2.3pc drop in July. The steeper path followed a 5pc-point increase in the main VAT rate which took effect on July 1.
January-September sales volume fell 4.4pc from the first nine months last year, after a 4.2 pc drop to August.
The retail sales data include turnover of vehicle fuel from January 2009, in line with changes to revised EU statistical classifications.
Retail sales, at current prices, totalled HUF 620.4bn in September — down from HUF 637.7bn in August — and amounted to HUF 5,265bn in the first nine months of the year, HUF 211bn less than a year ago. Food and FMCG sales accounted for 45pc of retail turnover in January-September.
Food and other FMCG sales were down 5.7pc in twelve months, and fell 3.5pc in January-September from the same period a year earlier. Sales volume at supermarkets, which account for 91pc of total FMCG sales, declined 6.4pc from September 2008.
Non-food retail sales volume fell an adjusted 11.2pc in September and dropped 7.7pc in January-August from the same respective periods a year earlier. In a month-on-month comparison, non-food retail sales dropped 0.5pc in September.
Fuel sales volume – which accounts for 16pc of retail sales – fell 1.4pc in September but was up 0.5pc in January-September from the same respective periods a year earlier. Fuel sales were down 0.6pc in a month-on-month comparison.
Car and car part sales, which are not calculated as part of retail sales, continued falling, dropping 52.3pc in September and declining 38.9pc in January-August.