Restaurants, cafes and canteens in Kazakhstan increased revenue by 16%, but adjusted for inflation, only 3.2% of that growth remained. From January to September, food service establishments earned 1.37 trillion tenge, while real growth rates were the lowest in six years, reports infohub.kz.
According to the Bureau of National Statistics, a year earlier revenue adjusted for price changes grew by 15.7%. For comparison: in the first nine months of 2021, real growth was 5%. At that time, establishments were recovering from a sharp decline in the first year of the pandemic.
The overall trend was most affected by a slowdown in the two largest cities. Almaty accounts for 32% of the country's food service revenue, and Astana for 22%.
In Almaty, real growth slowed from 51.9% to 5.4%, while in the capital it fell from 22.7% to 9.8%. Revenue in both cities continues to rise, but much more slowly than a year earlier.
Earlier, Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin said there are currently no prerequisites for further inflation growth in Kazakhstan. According to him, factors such as the tenge exchange rate and the balance of payments are favorable. The day before, Zhumangarin discussed three factors holding back economic growth.