Retail sales surprisingly recovered in Britain during July as warmer weather offset widespread economic uncertainty triggered by the country's vote to exit the European Union, a survey revealed on Tuesday. A joint survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and financial group KPMG showed retail sales grew by 1.1 percent in July compared with a year ago.
It was the fastest growth for six months and compared with a drop of 0.5 percent in June. "Warmer weather helped blow away some of the post-referendum blues, boosting the UK feel good factor and giving consumers a sense that 'life goes on' following the initial shock of the Brexit vote," KPMG's head of retail David McCorquodale said in a statement containing the data.
The Bank of England last week slashed its main interest rate to a record-low level of 0.25 percent and announced a vast stimulus package to combat economic fallout after Britain voted in June to leave the EU. And the BoE expects to trim the rate again later this year to just above zero, it signalled following its last monthly meeting. Britain's official retail sales data are meanwhile published on August 24. "July's BRC sales data show no sign of a slowdown in household spending following the EU referendum," said Capital Economics analyst Oliver Jones. "But some other measures have been less positive, and we will have to wait until next week for the first official post-vote sales data, so it's too soon to declare the sector out of the woods just yet."
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