Retail sales in Cyprus increased 4.7 percent from a year earlier in July 2019, following a 2.4 percent growth in the previous month, driven by sales of food products (3.8 percent vs 2.1 percent), automotive fuel (4.4 percent vs -3.9 percent), and non-food products (5.8 percent vs 4.2 percent). Within non-food, textiles, clothing, footwear sales grew by the most (10.9 percent vs 8.7 percent), followed by computers & telecommunications equipment, curtains, carpets, books, stationery, sporting equipment, toys, flowers, plants, watches, jewellery, etc. (5.3 percent vs 3.1 percent), and electrical household appliances, furniture, lighting equipment, construction materials, etc. (1.4 percent vs 3.1 percent). Retail Sales YoY in Cyprus averaged 0.59 percent from 2001 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 14.11 percent in February of 2008 and a record low of -32.96 percent in March of 2013.
Retail Sales YoY in Cyprus is expected to be 4.40 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Retail Sales YoY in Cyprus to stand at 4.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Cyprus Retail Sales YoY is projected to trend around 3.80 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.