Retail sales value up 29%

August 29, 2011

The value of total retail sales in July, provisionally estimated at $35.2 billion, increased 29.1% year on year.
 
The Census & Statistics Department said today, after netting out the effect of price changes over the same period, the volume of total retail sales grew 22.4%.
 
The revised estimate of the value of total retail sales in June, at $31.3 billion, rose 28.8% year on year, while the volume of total retail sales increased 22.2%.
 
For the first seven months of the year, total retail sales increased 25.1% in value and 19.6% in volume, over the same period last year.
 
The volume of sales of miscellaneous consumer durable goods increased the most in July, by 84.6%, year on year. This was followed by sales of electrical goods and photographic equipment (73.3%); jewellery, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts (37%); apparel (24.7%); miscellaneous consumer goods (19.8%); commodities in department stores (19.2%); footwear, allied products and other clothing accessories (17.8%); furniture and fixtures (15.3%); and, commodities in supermarkets (4.8%).
 
The volume of sales of food, alcohol and tobacco and that of motor vehicles and parts decreased 6% and 5% in July compared with a year earlier, while the volume of sales of fuel also dropped 0.9%.
 
Based on the seasonally adjusted series, the volume of total retail sales increased by 5.3% in the three months ending July when compared with the preceding three-month period.