New Market Study Published: Slovenia Retail Report Q4 2013

The Slovenian Retail Report examines the long-term potential of the local consumer market, but flags up short-term concerns about the impact of continuing fiscal austerity on Slovenia's economic outlook, and the increasing likelihood that the country will need external financial assistance to support its ailing banking sector.

We examine how best to maximise returns in the Slovenian retail market while minimising investment risk, and also explore the impact of decreased demand for imported goods on the part of Slovenia's major eurozone trading partners on the Slovenian consumer and on the ability of producers and exporters to realise returns in the short term. The report also analyses the growth and risk management strategies being employed by leading players in the Slovenian retail sector as they seek to maximise the growth opportunities offered by the local market.

Full Report Details at
- http://www.fastmr.com/prod/684696_slovenia_retail_report_q4_2013.aspx?afid=301

Slovenian per capita consumer spending is forecast to remain static through to 2017, compared with a regional growth average of 39%. The country comes third out of 10 in BMI's Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Retail Risk/Reward Ratings, in which it performs better in terms of risk.

Among all retail categories, mass grocery retail (MGR) will be the outperformer through to 2017 in growth terms, with sales predicted to increase from US$5.17bn in 2013 to US$5.78bn by 2017, a rise of 11.8%. The country has experienced the fastest growth in discounting within the CEE region, with hypermarket sales forecast to outperform the rest of the MGR sector between 2013 and 2017, growing by 14.7% to US $2.84bn.

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

* Slovenia's short-term growth outlook has deteriorated further as a crisis in the banking sector and a wave of austerity weigh on economic activity. Real GDP growth recorded its worst output since 2009 in the first quarter of 2013, and we expect conditions to improve only marginally by the end of the year. With unemployment set to rise further, confidence low and uncertainty abounding, we expect the recession to continue into 2014 (-0.2%), with only a modest return to growth in 2015 (1.0%).
* With spending power falling and uncertainty weighing on consumer confidence, which fell to a sixmonth low in May, we expect private spending to contract by 1.4% in 2013 and by a further 1% in 2014, with an average contribution to growth of -0.7 percentage points over the two years. We have also cut our projections for private spending growth over the medium term to an annual average of 2.3%, due to the lingering effect of the current crisis both at home and abroad.

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