Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/19/2013 -- The Romanian Retail Report examines the long-term potential of the local consumer market, but flags up short-term concerns about the impact on Romania's economic outlook of the uncertain domestic political environment.

The report examines how best to maximise returns in the Romanian retail market while minimising investment risk. It also explores the impact of renewed uncertainty over the future of the eurozone on the Romanian consumer and on the ability of producers and exporters to realise returns in the short term.

We analyse the growth and risk management strategies being employed by the leading players in the Romanian retail sector as they seek to maximise the growth opportunities offered by the local market.

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Romanian per capita consumer spending is forecast to increase by 35% to 2016, compared with a regional growth average of 33%. The country comes ninth out of 10 in BMI's Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Retail Risk/Reward Ratings (RRRs), although it outperforms slightly on the rewards side.

Among all retail categories, mass grocery retail (MGR) will be the outperformer through to 2016 in growth terms, with sales forecast to grow by more than 40%, compared with 20.6% for overall food sales. MGR is predicted to expand its share of the total food market to 60.3% by 2016, when value sales should reach US$11.86bn.

In the competitive arena, BMI sees upside potential in the fact that large-scale infrastructure improvement is ongoing and that Romania will receive substantial influxes of EU funds and loans over the coming years. The EUR7.1bn (US$9.2bn) investment into rural development during 2007-2013 forms part of the national budget.

Over the last quarter, BMI has revised the following forecasts/views:

- We have revised down our estimates for Romanian real GDP growth to 0.5% in 2012 and 1.7% in 2013, from previous forecasts of 1.0% and 2.2% respectively, and we do not rule out the possibility of a full-year recession in 2012. The Q212 bounce in Romanian economic activity was temporary, with rising external and domestic political headwinds to drive growth lower by year-end.
- Recent data suggest that whatever support there was from private consumption in Q212 petered out in the second half of 2012, with consumer confidence heading rapidly lower in August, and unemployment taking a sharp leg-up in July. With the domestic political environment remaining uncertain until after the December 2012 legislative elections, BMI believes the picture points to a weaker consumer story in Q3 and Q412, which will see private consumption contribute just 0.7 percentage points (pp) to growth in 2012.

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