Financiarul

Romania continues to be attractive to retail investors, and the apparel sector is where the country offers the greatest retail growth prospects among emerging economies, according to the findings of a recent study by the A.T. Kearney consulting firm carried by daily Ziarul financiar on Wednesday.

A.T. Kearney’s Retail Apparel Index, computed against absolute market size, growth prospects and consumer affluence and comprising 30 emerging economies, places Romania at number two.

The study explains that Romania makes the biggest leap on the Apparel Index, climbing four spots to second place, fuelled by growth in total clothing sales, and clothing sales per capita, over the past five years.

Romania’s young population, those between the ages of 15 and 39, is growing at a faster rate than China’s or Brazil’s.

Another appealing factor for retailers is that more than half of the Romanian population lives in urban centers. A doubling in available leasable area in Romania’s shopping malls provides a springboard for apparel retail.

The country’s National Economic Projection Board (CNP) is expecting Romania’s imports of textiles to decline 25 percent in 2009 from 2008, with imported clothing items to go down five percent, from 863 million euros in 2008, to 820 million euros.

In A.T. Kearney’s 2009 Global Retail Development Index (GRDI), Romania is ranked 23rd among 185 countries, one place down from the previous index. Topping the index are Russia, India and China.

Published since 2001, the GRDI helps retailers prioritise their global development strategies by ranking the retail expansion attractiveness of emerging countries based on a set of 25 variables including economic and political risk, retail market attractiveness, retail saturation levels, and modern retailing sales area and sales growth.