12-02-2008
High Street sales higher than expected
News by Adfero for Simply Business - independent providers of public liability insurance, business finance, landlord insurance, buy-to-let mortgages & commercial mortgages.
New data shows Britain's retailers to be performing better than had previously been expected.
Recently released data from the British Retail Consortium, a representative trade association for the retail sector, shows that over the course of January 2008, High Street retailers enjoyed higher like-for-like sales - thought, in part, to be the effect of higher food prices.
Consequently, reports suggest that these figures could undermine any plans by the Bank of England to implement a number of interest rate reductions.
"The message will be that the monetary policy committee does not expect to cut as far as markets project unless downside risks to the economy increase," said Michael Saunders, a representative from Citigroup, in a report by the Financial Times.
Geoffrey Dicks, a representative from the Royal Bank of Scotland, added in the report: "[These figures] cast serious doubt on current market expectations for extensive, around one percentage point, rate cuts."
The report also found that, in the year to January, the UK's factory gate prices increased by 5.7 per cent.
