Most powerful retail manager: Recovery depends on consumers' optimism

Duşan Wilms, one of the few Romanian executives running a multinational, with 5,800 employees and 1.3bn-euro turnover, says the revival of retail and of the economy rests with consumption, the engine of the pre-crisis period.
"Everything depends on the optimism or pessimism of consumers, on their wish to buy and consume. As this is a crisis period, uncertainty is mounting and people are more carefully managing, investing their money. This impacts retail, particularly non-food retail. I believe the biggest decline was in non-food retail and especially in 'high-value investment products'".
Wilms, 50, believes certain products are no longer bought because no more loans are being released, loans that were very easily granted by banks before the crisis.
The head of Metro Cash & Carry Romania states that at the moment money is no longer kept under the form of cash, when the population regains its confidence in purchasing power and when there's economic growth, we will be speaking of a consumption rebound.