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Retail Summit 2009 - Growth could return sharply.
Archived article dated Wednesday February 4th 2009
There is uncertainty over who will bear the brunt of the pain from the recession - manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers or consumers - which is predicted to be sharp, with growth coming back sharply.
This was the view expressed by Richard Lowe, corporate director for retail and wholesale at Barclays Commercial Bank, when speaking on the first day of the Retail Bulletin Summit 2009.
He suggested the economic problems are a symptom of “too much consumption over the past decade...we've been consuming too much and saving too little”. The decline in the housing sector has been the prime driver in less consumer spending now taking place along with a general lack of confidence. This was being compounded by rising unemployment, which Barclays Capital predicts will rise through to 2011.
Within the UK, the depreciation of the pound against both the dollar and the Euro has also had a major effect for those retailers importing goods, although Lowe says Barclays expects the pound to appreciate from this point on.
He told delegates that the recession could be short and that growth could come back as early as the fourth quarter of 2009. However, he suggested the trend over recent years for consumers to save little and crank up their debt levels means big-ticket retailers are in for a continued hard time.
Tagged as: summit 2009 | ksa
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