Seasonally adjusted retail sales in Alberta grew by 1.2 per cent ($80.4 million) in July, the third highest rate of growth among the provinces and double the national average.

Monthly sales had already surpassed their pre-schock level the month before, but the growth in July helped close the gap in year-to-date sales which were still down by 6.9 per cent ($3.3 billion).

The improvement in sales was driven by automobile dealers and gas stations.

On an unadjusted basis, all 11 of the main retail sub-sectors posted higher sales in July than they did in April during the lockdown.

Year-to-date sales, however, remain down overall and in 7 out of 11 sub-sectors. Clothing stores were down the most over the first seven months of the year at -37.0 per cent followed by sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores (-22.7 per cent) and gas stations (-18.1 per cent).

Food and beverage stores were up the most on a year-to-date basis at +9.0 per cent. The miscellaneous sub-sector was up by 7.8 per cent, but would have been in negative territory if not for cannabis stores which were up by 158.0 per cent compared to the same period in 2019.