Table 3 : Movement of total retail sales volume, December 2001 - February 2003

Original Series		Seasonally Adjusted Series
Year/Month	Year-on-year rate of change (%)	3 months ending Month/Year	Compared with the 3 months ending Month/Year	Rate of change (%)@#
2001 Dec	-3.3	Dec 2001	Sep 2001	-1.8
2002 Jan	-10.4	Jan 2002	Oct 2001	-0.6
Feb	+9.3	Feb 2002	Nov 2001	+1.1
Mar	-1.4	Mar 2002	Dec 2001	+2.1
Apr	-1.6	Apr 2002	Jan 2002	+2.1
May	-5.0	May 2002	Feb 2002	-0.1
Jun	-6.9	Jun 2002	Mar 2002	-1.5
Jul	-2.8	Jul 2002	Apr 2002	-2.8
Aug	-3.1	Aug 2002	May 2002	-2.1
Sep	-3.1	Sep 2002	Jun 2002	-1.4
Oct	-1.1	Oct 2002	Jul 2002	-0.7
Nov	-1.5	Nov 2002	Aug 2002	-0.3
Dec	-0.7	Dec 2002	Sep 2002	+0.1
2003 Jan	+11.7	Jan 2003	Oct 2002	+2.9
Feb	-11.1*	Feb 2003	Nov 2002	+2.0*

* Provisional figures.

@ In calculating this rate of change, the 1999/2000-based seasonally adjusted series is used. The rate is calculated by comparing the monthly average index for the 3-month period ending the month in question with that for the preceding 3-month period, e.g. the rate for the 3 months ending Dec. 2002 is the percentage change of the average monthly index for Oct., Nov. and Dec. 2002 over the average monthly index for Jul., Aug. and Sep. 2002.

# Seasonally adjusted series may be revised as more data become available. For retail sales index, the seasonally adjusted series for the preceding three years are revised each year when the figures for January become available.

The underlined figure was rounded up to 5.