SINGAPORE’S retail sales rose by 5.2 per cent in August from July – the smallest decline in eight months, as the economic recovery spurred spending on cars and at department stores.
But the volume of sales is still 5.2 per cent lower than a year ago, according to the latest retail sales and catering trade index released by the Department of Statistics on Thursday. The median estimate of six economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for an 8.9 per cent decline.
The catering trade also saw a 1 per cent rise in business from July, but declined by 2.8 per cent compared to August last year.
The data shows that motor vehicles and petrol service stations recorded higher sales of 13.2 per cent and 7.2 per cent in August, as did sales of apparel and footwear, watches and jewellery, supermarkets, furniture and household equipment, medical goods and toiletries, which recorded higher receipts of between 1.5 per cent and 10.9 per cent.
But sales of food and beverages, recreational goods, telecommunications apparatus and computers, provision and sundry shops and optical goods and books declined between 2 per cent and 5.8 per cent during the month.
Source : Straits Times – 15 Oct 2009
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