British retail sale increases by 3.9% in August

Britain's retail sales volume increased by 3.9 percent in August 2014 compared with August 2013 and by 0.4 percent compared with July 2014, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday.
It was the 17th month of consecutive year-on-year growth that the statistics department recorded.
The quantity bought in household goods stores last month grew by 12.8 percent year-on-year, recording the largest increase since October 2001. The main contribution to this increase in growth was from furniture stores, with 23.4 percent increase, said ONS.
The amount spent online grew by 11.0 percent in August 2014 compared with a year earlier, data also showed.
In amount spent term, retail industry's sales in August increased by 2.7 percent on year-on-year basis, and by 0.2 percent compare with July 2014, said ONS. But the average store prices fell 1.2 percent year-on-year in August, as the prices at petrol stations dropped substantially.
Samuel Tombs, Senior UK Economist at Capital Economics, commented in an analysis piece:" August's retail sales figures showed that the recovery in consumer spending still has momentum despite the continued real pay squeeze and looming interest rate hikes."
The London-based economic research company expect the annual growth in retail sales will be four percent in 2014 and three percent next year.
Meanwhile, two out of the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England (BoE) voted to raise benchmark interest rate, according to the central bank's meeting minutes published on Wednesday. It is the second month of opinion split.