By Grant Shepherd

SYDNEY: The Australian Bureau of Statistics has announced that retail sales throughout January were surprisingly strong, especially when compared to the disappointing fall in December. Department stores in particualr performed extremely well.

The latest ABS retail trade figures show that sales in January rose 1.2 per cent seasonally adjusted. This is compared to a fall of 0.9 per cent in December 2009.

Department stores performed the best with a 7.2 per cent increase, followed by clothing, footwear and other personal accessory retailing with 2.9 per cent. Other retailing (1.4 per cent), food retailing (1.3 per cent) and household goods retailing (0.6 per cent) also showed signs of growth.

South Australia (3.7 per cent) recorded the strongest growth in sales for January, followed by Western Australia (2.6 per cent), Victoria (1.5 per cent), the Australian Capital Territory (0.8 per cent), Queensland (0.7 per cent), the Northern Territory (0.6 per cent) and New South Wales (0.4 per cent). Tasmania was unchanged for the period.

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