Retailers continued their bounce back to recovery last month with the sharpest rise in sales volumes for more than two years, according to figures just released.

But business leaders warned the sales rise was still not a consumer boom.

The Confederation of British Industry's monthly distributive trades survey found 58 per cent of retailers reporting a rise in sales in September while only 17 per cent said sales were falling.

Encouraging

Alastair Eperon, chairman of the CBI's distributive trades panel, said: "The figures are very encouraging as they point to a more broad-based expansion across most though not all retail sectors.

"But retailers sales volume growth is well below that reported during the consumer boom of the late Eighties suggesting talks of a consumer boom is overdone.

And, according to the British Retail Consortium, shop prices have fallen to their lowest levels in nearly two years as competition heats up among high street retailers.

BRCO's director general Ann Robinson said: "There are a lot of competitive price cuts going on in the high street and that means there's no inflationary pressure coming from the retail

sector."

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