LONDON, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Britain's retail sales enjoyed annual growth of 5.6 percent in April, in figures which show that economic growth maintains momentum.
The buoyant figure, released on Tuesday, was a turnaround from the 1 percent year-on-year decline in March, and exceeded the consensus expectation of 0.5 percent growth. The value of sales went up even more, rising 6.3 percent annually, the strongest growth in six years.
Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist with Pantheon Macroeconomics, a finance data analysis firm, said the figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) were "very strong".
Figures have benefited from a later Easter than the previous year, adding some upward distortion to the figures. Like-for-like sales grew at the fastest rate for 11 years, despite there being five occasions since 2005 when Easter occurred in April but was in March in the previous year's figures, said Tombs.
Sales growth also was boosted by rising prices, although year-over-year growth in the BRC's measure of shop prices rose only to -0.5 percent in April, from -0.8 percent in March.
Consumer spending has been the main driver of UK economic growth, which has surprised with its robustness since the Brexit referendum vote last June.
The sharp depreciation in sterling (down from 1.48 U.S. dollars to 1.29 U.S. dollars) since the Brexit vote has driven CPI inflation up from 0.5 percent to 2.3 percent. Wages are not keeping pace, and economists and experts see the start of a squeeze on spending, which will in turn affect the drivers of economic growth.
However, one strong month did not imply that the consumer-led slowdown is over, said Tombs.
Business surveys have not indicated that either wage or employment growth improved recently. In addition, consumer confidence has continued to edge down, house prices have stagnated and banks are intending to restrict the supply of secured credit.
"April's surge in retail sales just looks like a blip away from their weak trend," he said.
