Retail trade in Kazakhstan is gaining momentum – over five years, sales have increased by almost 80%. This year, for eleven months, retail sales amounted to about 10 trillion tenge.
The current state of the global economy, characterized by rising inflation in large markets, changes in monetary and financial policies, as well as currency devaluation, poses risks of economic slowdown in most developing and developed countries. Obviously, the current economic collapse will seriously affect exports and external investment flows. As a result, production capacities of the industrial sector will be significantly reduced.
Moreover, already this year it is clear that the degree of influence of industrial production and the mining sector on the economy of Kazakhstan is weakening. However, the potential of wholesale and retail trade is growing, which indicates an improvement in the situation in the domestic consumer market.
So, over the past five years, the volume of retail trade in Kazakhstan has grown by 78.3%. It should be noted that the price increase compared to December 2015 amounted to 25.7%, while household incomes for the consumption of goods rose immediately by 40.7%.
According to the results of the eleven months of 2019, the volume of trade reached 9.95 trillion tenge, an increase of 12.5% compared to the same period in 2018. Moreover, this year the average monthly trade turnover reached about 1 trillion tenge, while in 2018 the figure was 840 billion tenge.
According to the structure of retail trade, the bulk or 68.2% are non-food items. At the same time, the cost of buying clothes is almost 2 times higher than the cost of purchasing new cars. So, in 2018, Kazakhstan people spent 963.7 billion tenge on clothes, and 447.8 billion tenge on cars.
In the structure of food products, a third of the cash or 948.4 billion tenge was spent on the purchase of meat products and beverages, including alcohol.
Individual entrepreneurs and small businesses are traditionally the main sources of trade – they sold 41.5% and 30.5% of the turnover, respectively. The share of trade in medium-sized enterprises of the total volume was 19.4%, and for large ones – only 8.6%.
Most goods were sold in the cities of Almaty (31.2%) and Nur-Sultan (11.5%), as well as Karaganda (8.8%) and East Kazakhstan (8.7%) regions.
In turn, the development of trade is a positive trend, as trade stimulates the growth of financial stability of enterprises, forms the basis for state stability, being a budget-forming component, increases the welfare of the population, provides the market with new jobs and creates a healthy competitive environment.