Retail trade, a good indicator of private consumption growth – the main driver of GDP – slowed to 2% after the first 9 months, signaling a loss of breath for the rest of the year.

Good luck with sales of non-food (+3.5%) and food, beverages and tobacco (+3.4%), leaving domestic consumption in the red. Fuel trade decreased by 3.1%.

There was also a significant increase due to the drug trade.

Until recently, retail trade was the main component of GDP. The bad thing is that what we bought was produced outside the country. When Romania still had industry, every lei you paid for a pair of socks produced by a Romanian company was a profit for that factory, which, thanks to the lei provided by you and others, was able to hire more workers and develop new production departments. The same thing is happening today, only at a factory abroad.

Many of the consumer goods we buy are imported. If you buy a shirt or a TV, you are stimulating manufacturing jobs in China or, at best, in a European country.

This is true for the entire economy, but a useful example is the apparel industry (where sales growth doubled in January, according to statistics). Our textile industry has one of the lowest wages and is struggling to survive. And where did the money go? Answer: In factories in China and other parts of the world that produce clothes for the Romanian market.

And we are talking not only about clothes, but also about food, furniture, pharmaceutical products, etc. In short, we consume from imports.

This does not mean that imports are bad. When you buy something imported, if it is cheaper than produced in Romania, you save money that you can then use to take better care of yourself. Simply importing milk from China (as Romania does), Poland, Hungary or even Norway says a lot about the potential of our economy.