Swedish retail sales up

Retail sales for mostly food (e.g. department stores and specialised grocery stores) went up by 3.7% while sales for mostly durables (e.g. clothing stores, furniture stores and stores for second-hand goods) increased by 4.8%, according to the Swedish state statistics agency Statistics Sweden. From December 2002 to January 2003 Swedish retail sales rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.4%.