(Corrects comparison in paragraph 2 to month on month, not year on year)
By David Milliken and Andy Bruce
LONDON (Reuters) -British retail sales surged in April as shoppers splashed out on new clothes after shops reopened following months of lockdown closures, official data showed on Friday.
Sales volumes in April jumped 9.2% month on month – twice the average forecast in a Reuters poll of economists – after rising 5.1% in March. Clothing sales soared by almost 70%.
Sterling rose slightly against the U.S. dollar on the latest sign of a robust economic recovery in Britain.
“Fashion retailers (were) the ultimate beneficiaries of beer gardens reopening and the ‘rule of six’ night out returning,” said Aled Jones, head of retail at Lloyds Bank.
Sales volumes were 42.4% higher than a year earlier, when they collapsed during Britain’s first coronavirus lockdown, the Office for National Statistics said.
British retail sales are now 10.6% above their level in February 2020, before the pandemic struck, though many retailers have suffered badly from repeated lockdowns that accelerated the shift to…
