Adjusted fuel sales dropped 3.3% on the month in April, sales of food, beverages and tobacco dropped 0.3%, while sales of non-food items grew 0.7%.
Compared with April 2016, retail sales grew 6.1% in seasonally adjusted terms, as sales of non-food items grew 9.7%, fuel sales grew 7.9%, and sales of food, beverages and tobacco grew 0.7%. In unadjusted terms, retail sales grew 4.8% in April compared with April 2016.
In the January-April period, adjusted retail sales grew 7% compared with the same period last year. In unadjusted data, retail sales grew 6.3% on the year in January-April.
Adjusted sales of non-food items grew 10.1% on the year in the first four months, fuel sales grew 9.6%, and sales of food, beverages and tobacco grew 2.1%, the data showed.