Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/05/2012 -- The Czech Republic Retail Report examines the long-term potential of the local consumer market, but flags short-term concerns about the impact on the country's economic outlook of high unemployment and ongoing fiscal austerity.

The report examines how best to maximise returns in the Czech retail market while minimising investment risk, and also explores the impact of the increasingly precarious looking eurozone macroeconomic environment on the Czech 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 the leading players in the Czech retail sector, as they seek to maximise the growth opportunities offered by the local market.

Czech per capita consumer spending is forecast to increase by a modest 10% to 2016, compared with a regional growth average of 44%. The country comes second (out of 10) in BMI's Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Retail Risk/Reward Ratings, and notably outperforms for Risk.

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Among all retail categories, mass grocery retail (MGR) will be the outperformer through to 2016 in growth terms, with BMI forecasting sales to expand by almost 19%, from US$15.57bn in 2012 to US$18.48bn by 2016. Through to 2016, we expect the proportional contribution of supermarkets and hypermarkets to remain dominant, with premiumisation momentum expected to pick up in line with the pre-crisis trend.

In the competitive arena, BMI sees upside potential in the fact that the Czech Republic, which joined the EU in May 2004, has a reasonably open economy compared with some neighbouring CEE markets, and some companies from outside the region continue to transfer parts of their business to the Czech Republic to reduce costs and take advantage of the domestic market.

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

- BMI is holding to its forecast for the Czech Republic to avoid a full-year recession in 2012, and forecasts economic growth of 0.1% before recovering to 1.3% in 2013. A combination of fiscal austerity and uncertainty surrounding the future of the eurozone, to which the Czech Republic is heftily exposed, will mean government consumption, household consumption and investment spending pose net drags on growth this year.
- Data released by the Czech Statistics Office (CZSO) show that household consumption contracted for the fifth quarter running in Q112 at -2.9% y-o-y, following a 0.7% drop in Q411. This translated to a net drag on growth tantamount to 1.3 percentage points (pp). BMI expects that Czech consumer spending will fall by 3.2% in 2012, posing a 1.5pp drag on economic growth.

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