UK retail sales are up more than expected

The Office for National Statistics said today that UK retail sales rose 5.4% in March as clothing retailers benefited from online sales and analysts had expected UK retail sales to rise 1.5% in March. The data showed that the British government borrowed 303.1 billion pounds in the 2020/21 fiscal year that ended last month, an increase of 246 billion pounds from the previous year and the largest share of the economy in peacetime.

Borrowing reached 14.5% of economic output, the highest rate since 1946 after World War II when it was 15.2%, and public debt reached 2.14 trillion pounds, or nearly 98% of GDP, and it is expected that borrowing in the current year 2021/22 will Down to 234 billion pounds.