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Strong euro boosts Central London retail sales

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Date: Monday 21 Apr 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - Retail sales in Central London have shown more resilience than the UK as a whole, although the numbers are down sharply on last year as shoppers start to watch the pennies.

Data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has shown like for like sales rose 2% in March on the same month last year and by 5% during the first quarter.

That compares with 10.8% like for like sales growth in March 2007, but is far better than the UK as a whole which suffered a 1.6% fall in sales last month.

“London’s retailers continue to resist the effects of the more severe slowdown affecting the rest of the UK,” said BRC Director General Stephen Robertson.

“Grim weather snatched away much of the boost that many retailers would normally expect from Easter but the increased attraction of London to Eurozone visitors and a strong focus on delivering, better than ever, value for money are working to keep London sales growth positive.”

Food felt the benefit of the early Easter, but sales of clothing and footwear were “particularly tough” despite continued discounting, the report revealed. It also blamed struggling sales of homewares on shrinking disposable incomes.

“Although there are significant differences in the performance of individual London retailers, they all continue to hope that shoppers in the capital will be more resilient to the spending slowdown,” said Helen Dickinson, Head of Retail at KPMG.

“The threat of large numbers of City job losses does not bode well."