| Kippreport.com

Are you still spending?

September 2, 2009 2:11 by kippreport

Consumer spending has not gone down in the Middle East, in spite of the financial crisis, reports Emirates Business, quoting figures from MasterCard Worldwide.

“People may say that because the rate of growth has changed, spending has gone down, but no… spending has not gone down. Rather, only the rate of growth has slowed down. They are two different things,” Raghu Malhotra, area business head Middle East for MasterCard Worldwide told the paper.

“I can only go by facts. What do we see in our business? Our business is growing,” he said, adding “Parts of the world may be flat or declining but in this region, we have not seen a downturn in spending at all – this is across the region… I am not aggregating this.”

But if consumer spending has not fallen, why are businesses shutting down here? Why are gold retailers constantly complaining about reducing sales?

While MasterCard may have seen growing business in the region, does that necessarily mean that people are still splurging?

Tags: consumer spending, Mastercard, not falling, shopping