U.K. February Retail Sales Rise More Than Forecast on Food

U.K. retail sales rose more than three times as much as economists forecast in February as Internet sales and spending on food surged, signaling the recovery maintained its momentum in the first quarter.

Sales including auto fuel increased 1.7 percent from January, when they declined a revised 2 percent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. That compared with a forecast for an increase of 0.5 percent, according to the median of 20 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.