Retail sales and other indicators of sales in services showed a decline of their growth pace. However, taking into account that September 2000 had two working days less than the same month of 1999 we can conclude that sales and consumers’ demand keep their positive trend.
Sales of purchases and repairs of motor vehicles declined by 3.7%. Retail sales of automotive fuels dropped by 2.9%. Both can be partially ascribed to an increase of fuel prices. Automotive fuel prices are now more than 20% higher than year ago. As for the demand for motor vehicles there was a strong demand at the beginning of this year. Now, it seems that the Czech market is saturated enough and thus there is a small scope for dynamic development of this sector of retail trade.
Other retail trade sectors rendered an increase of sales in y-o-y measure. Sales increases in hypermarkets and supermarkets underlie the development of the overall retail sales. Their sales are rising twice quicker than sales in small and medium businesses. Owing to the development of the retail network of international companies retail sales rose by 4.9% in the first three quarters of this year, y-o-y.
Sales in hotels and restaurants and in transport maintained their high growth rates (9.0% and 6.1%, respectively). The highest increase of sales was achieved in Post & telecommunications (14.2%).
(David Marek)