Retail sales in Singapore up 2.3% in January

Write: Erica [2011-05-20]

Singaporean retail sales up in Feb

After guarding their wallets closely for more than a year, shoppers hit the streets again in January, sending retail sales in Singapore up for the first time in 16 months.

Sales, on a downtrend since the financial crisis started in October 2008, rose 2.3 per cent in January from the year before, said the Department of Statistics (DOS) on Monday.

Consumers spent more freely on both big-ticket items like cars and smaller purchases such as watches and jewellery, telecommunications gadgets and computers, furniture and household equipment, petrol, and optical goods and books.

Excluding car sales, which rose 5.4 per cent, retail sales would have risen by a smaller 1.3 per cent in January, DOS said.

The other five categories saw a double-digit jump in sales in January, DOS data showed on Monday. Month-on-month, retail sales in January rose 5.8 per cent compared to last December.