US retail, food sales up 0.1% in April

U.S. retail and food services sales posted a slight uptick last month, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported on Monday. The Commerce Department said that the combined sales of retail and food services edged up 0.1 percent from the previous month to seasonally adjusted 419 billion U.S. dollars in April. The figure represented a 3.7 percent increase from a year earlier, said the department. Excluding autos, retail and food services sales in April stood at 340.4 billion dollars, down 0.1 percent from March and up 2.8 percent from a year earlier. Consumer spending accounted for about 70 percent of the total activity in the world's largest economy, which is on track of recovery from the worst recession in decades.