U.K. March Retail Sales Surge on Warm Weather, Fuel Panic

U.K. retail sales rose at the fastest pace for more than a year last month as the warmest March for half a century boosted purchases of clothing and gardening products and panic buying lifted auto-fuel demand.

Sales including auto fuel gained 1.8 percent from February, when they fell 0.8 percent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The median forecast of 22 economists in a Bloomberg survey was for a 0.5 percent gain. Sales excluding fuel climbed 1.5 percent. A 0.4 percent gain was predicted.