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Provisional retail sales statistics for April released
The value of total retail sales in April 1996, estimated at $16.7 billion, increased by 5% when compared with April 1995, according to the provisional figures released by the Census and Statistics Department today (Tuesday).
After discounting the effect of price changes over the period, total retail sales showed a small increase of 0.3% in volume.
The volume of retail sales is derived from the value of retail sales after adjusting for price changes. The relevant components of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) are used as deflators.
In parallel with CPI, both the series of value indices and volume indices of retail sales have been rebased, taking the twelve months from October 1994 to September 1995 as the new base period.
Starting from the data release for the reference month of April 1996, the published value and volume indices of retail sales and their year-on-year rates of change will be based on the new rebased series.
Compared with a year ago, sales of motor vehicles increased by 13% in value and 14% in volume. This is consecutively the second month where year-on-year growth in volume terms has been registered since July 1994.
Concurrently, sales of some other commodities also recorded increases in both value and volume terms. These included consumer durable goods other than motor vehicles (6% in value and 5% in volume); miscellaneous consumer goods (9% in value and 4% in volume); and clothing and footwear (8% in value and 1% in volume).
Meanwhile, sales of food, alcoholic drinks and tobacco went up by 9% in value, albeit virtually no change in volume.
On the other hand, sales in supermarkets rose by 6% in value but dropped by 1% in volume. Sales of valuable goods (jewellery, watches and clocks and valuable gifts) and fuels both registered virtually no change in value but declined by 3% and 7% in volume respectively. Sales in department stores also went down by 5% in value
and 9% in volume.