Consumer foodstuffs demand and income standard development in the households of Slovakia[Vývoj spotrebiteľského dopytu po potravinách a dôchodkovej úrovne domácností v SR]

The present social and economic conditions in Slovakia participate to the behaviour differentiation of individual households on the consumer market. It is possible to speak about changes both in the positive and negative sense of word. The positive impact can be observed in the inter-annual increase of the population revenues especially in the years 2006 and 2007 (by 13.86 % and 12.05 %) in connection with greater possibilities of the employment growth and employment on the work market of the EU member countries. The negative manifestations can be seen within the low income household groups because they represent a great part of households in Slovakia. In spite of the fact that the final consumptions and expenditures of private households increased from 56.3 % in 2000 to 58.3 % in 2005 and it was manifested in GDP, and the growth of the population standard purchasing power increased from € 5400.00 to € 7700.00 per inhabitant (Eurostat 08), Slovakia is within the EU-27 countries at the lower bound of the achieved purchasing power standard (the Eurozone average is € 14000.00). Over the decennial period (1998-2007) the average annual monetary revenue increase of private households was 7.62 % and in 2007 it represented a nominal value of € 4158.269 and in the real expression it was € 4105.009 per a household member. In the past years the economic development in Slovakia (GDP growth by 10.4 % and the final household consumption by 7.1 % in 2007) enabled, at the average annual income growth by 7.62 %, an increase of consumption expenditures by 6.59 % for foodstuffs and for non alcoholic beverages by 3.66 %. This development is confirmed by income-demand analysis results.