OREANDA-NEWS  On 17 February was announced, that according to Citibank's research Russian consumers remain optimistic, while buying more gifts rather than durable goods.

In January 2009 Citibank conducted a follow-up research on Christmas and New Year shopping spending comparing actual data with the forecast made in early December. Despite rather gloomy forecasts, the results show growth in consumer spending during the holiday season beating the expectations. Spending on alcohol, cosmetics and perfumes has strengthened, while there was certain decline in such expensive gift categories and durable goods as computers, telecommunication equipment and home electronic appliances.

Commenting the results of the research, Michael Berner, Head of Credit Card Business at Citi Russia, noted: "The results are truly unexpected, despite of the tough economic conditions high growth in retail spend continued. The change was observed primarily in the structure of their spend but not in the volume. Russians proved to be more optimistic then many of us used to think before and this is clearly a positive sign to the market".

December 2008 spend growth reached 16% compared to the year's monthly average. Compared to the December 2007 the increase made up 7%, which is also much higher than expected (3%).