Retail sales boosted by sunny weather and football in July

According to the latest official figures, sunny weather and women’s euro football tournament helped to remove retail sales in July.

According to the National Statistics Office (Ones), which is higher than the analysts’ forecasts, retail sales volumes increased by 0.6% in July.

The launch of figures was delayed for two weeks due to concerns about the quality of the data.

Ons has recently been under fire due to the reliability of some statistics.

In July, sales volumes rise, while sales fell 0.6% in July compared to the last three months in July.

“Supermarkets, sports shops and household goods stores made a strong start to the year, but spending since March,” James Benford, General Manager of Economic Statistics, said.

However, he added that this was partially balanced with strong sales in online and clothing and shoe stores.

Mr. Benford apologized for errors in past data and said Ones had “improvement plans”.