Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 13/ Trend /
Ellada Khankishiyeva, Director of Trend Analytic Center
Investment profitability and amount of loans significantly reduced due to the financial crisis. It mainly affected the consumer expenditures in the European countries and the USA. Europeans and Americans began to spend less money, limiting their expenditures for goods and services.
Since 2008 Americans economize on luxury. Then they stopped to buy goods costing more than $1,000, including not only cars, but also furniture, home appliances and electronics. The crisis obliged the U.S citizens to economize on medical treatment. They refuse from medicines and recommended medical procedures.
But Europeans economize on food as well. Most of them are obliged to buy cheap goods and stop going to restaurants. The obligatory part of culture for Greek and Italians is to eat in restaurants, but presently, they prefer to eat at home. Europeans reduced expenditures on books which greatly affected book shops and publishing houses. Moreover, Europeans reduced expenditures for tourist trips as rest is much cheaper at home.
According to official statistics, there is no reason to think over huge consumer collapse in Azerbaijan. According to the State Statistics Committee, consumer goods in amount of 939.5 million manat were sold to the population by Azerbaijani trade centers in January which is 10.3 percent more compared to the same period of 2008. Nearly 620.9 million manat of total sum spent on consumer purchases was expenditures on foodstuffs, 318.6 million manat -non-food.
Growth of sale on both kinds of goods compared to January 2008 totaled 10.4 and 11.2 percent accordingly. Paid services totaling 310.1 million manat, which is 20.1 percent more, were rendered last month.
So, Azerbaijani citizen become aware of the crisis from the news sources and prefer to spend money fearing devaluation. But if the crisis takes such a system character in Azerbaijan soon, the domestic consumer market will have hard consequences. But it is unlikely to come to the volumes like in the European and American markets.
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