U.K. Retail Sales Continue To Rise In December: CBI

(RTTNews) - U.K. retail sales continued their upward trend, with strong year-on-year growth in the first half of December, latest distributive trades survey by the Confederation of British Industry revealed Wednesday. However, retailers expect growth to slacken slightly in January, as the VAT hike comes into force.

The balance between retailers reporting an increase in sales and those reporting a decrease was 56% in December, the highest figure since April 2002. This indicates that there have now been six months of strong sales figures in a row since July.
Retailers expects sales growth to slow in January, with a balance of 35% expecting volume of sales to be higher than a year ago.
The balance for the volume of orders placed upon suppliers was 52%, although the balance for next month of 24% suggests a slower rate of growth.