- Rain Newton-Smith, CBI director of economics
British retail sales declined below forecasts in October following a strong performance in the preceding month, the Office for National Statistics reported. This was mainly driven by a sharp fall in clothing and food store sales, which dropped 1.8% and 1.3%, respectively. UK retail sales volumes fell 0.6% month-on-month in October after an increase of 1.7% in September. The figure came against analysts' forecasts of a 0.5% drop on month. Excluding auto fuel, retail sales declined 0.9% from September's growth of 1.5%, thus, being also beyond the projected 0.6% decrease. Measured on an annual basis, retail sales revealed disappointing results as well. Growth in retail sales including auto fuel dropped 3.8% in October from 6.2% in the previous month. Economists expected sales to expand by 4.5%. Excluding auto fuel, retail sales gained 3% compared with September's rise of 5.7%. Analysts' projected a 3.9% increase.
In the meantime, British manufacturers reported a decrease in new orders in the current month due to the biggest fall in export demand since January 2013. In general, the balance of total orders improved to -11% on a monthly basis in November, slightly worse than the expected -10%, however, up from October's -18%.
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