The National Retail Association CEO Dominique Lamb has urged against a further move on interest rates.
April retail trade figures show a 9.6 per cent increase over 12 months, seasonally adjusted, and growth of 0.9 per cent for the month.
Lamb said while the growth is welcome news, the Reserve Bank should wait for May and June figures before moving again on interest rates.
“This is certainly welcome news, although it’s no great surprise as we knew there were inflationary pressures in the economy, which is what prompted this month’s rate increase," she said.
“The danger for retailers will be if we see further increases before there has been time to properly assess the impact of the first rate rise.
"So we caution against using these figures as a reason to try to curb spending, when we don’t yet know the impact of the May increase.”
Western Australia was the stand-out performer in April, with month-on-month growth of 2.2 per cent, followed by Tasmania (2.0) and Queensland (1.6). New South Wales was the only state to go backwards for the month, with a 0.3 per cent retraction.
Cafes and restaurants continued to perform strongly in April, with growth of 3.3 per cent, while the Clothing, Footwear and Personal Accessories category (3.1 per cent) also performed well. Household goods (-2.7) and department stores (-2.5) both went backwards for the month.
Lamb said the state and sector analysis showed that the strong results were not uniform across the country, and urged policy makers to keep in mind that some retailers were still struggling to recover from COVID.
“Some will feel the pain from the recent rate hike more sharply than others, and some will struggle to pay the additional superannuation and minimum wage rise that are due to come in from July 1,” Lamb said.
“People making decisions about those factors – wages and interest rates – need to keep in mind that there are thousands of small businesses who are still doing it tough, even though some states and some sectors are thriving.”