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January 08
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20th June 2008
Retailers 'have shielded consumers from price rises'
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said consumers have been shielded from the full impact on rising prices.
Reacting after figures published earlier this week (June 17th) that showed inflation in the UK rose to 3.3 per cent in May, the BRC said retailers had been absorbing many of these rising costs, rather than pass them on to consumers.
In fact, the BRC suggested that the inflation figure would have been considerably higher if retailers had not continued to fight to keep prices down.
"Retailers are the good guys here," BRC director general Stephen Robertson explained. "Overall inflation would be a lot higher if it weren't for retailers' efforts to shield customers from the full impact of rising costs, even at the expense of their own margins.
"Retailers are working hard to help cash-strapped customers with discounts and promotions and, let's not forget, the price of non-food goods continues to fall."
Mr Robertson added that the government should "think long and hard about the impact on customers of piling on new costs and further fuelling inflation".
Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggested that retail sales picked up in May, on the back of heavily discounting from high street shops.
(c) 2008 Adfero Ltd.
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