OREANDA-NEWS. April 26, 2011. Belarus’ retail turnover, including the public catering sector, went up 21.4% on the year in January-March 2011 to 17.455 trillion Belarusian rubles (Br), an official with the National Statistics Committee stated.

Sales by public catering organizations rose 11.7% to 911.7 billion rubles.

Of the total, trade organizations accounted for 75.9%, and individual entrepreneurs and newly formed unitary companies accounted for the remaining 24.1%.

Belarus-made consumer goods accounted for 73.6% of the retail trade turnover. Trade at markets was not accounted for. The share of Belarusian foodstuffs was at 83.6%, Belarusian non-foods at 58.9% in retail trade.

The share of private companies in the total retail turnover was at 85.1%, up 1.6 percentage points from January-March 2010, state companies 10.9%, down 1.1 percentage points year-on-year, while the share of foreign companies stood at 4.1%, up 0.5 of a percentage point.