Singapore Retail Sales Rise as Expansion in Jobs Spurs Spending

Singapore’s retail sales rose in January as a growing jobs market and rising tourist arrivals spurred consumer spending.

The index measuring purchases excluding automobiles rose 15.6 percent from a year earlier after gaining a revised 8.9 percent in December, the Statistics Department said in a statement today. Including vehicles, which are sold subject to government caps, total retail sales grew 2.9 percent, compared with the median forecast for a 1 percent increase in a Bloomberg News survey of six economists.