March 31 (AFP) - The International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC) announced on Tuesday March 31 that shopping centre sales in the USA have increased by 1.1% for the week ending March 28 as compared to the week previous.

Sales climbed to 486.5 from 481.3 the week before, during which they had slightly fallen.
Compared to last year, sales have seen a slight contraction of 0.2% whilst the two preceding weeks had seen the worst weekly performance since the start of the year (-1.4%), according to the organization.

“Sales picked up towards the end of the week, and were further improved over the weekend… This strong week is a good omen for the retail market and for the economy, even if there is still a lot of room for improvement”, commented the economist in chief of the ICSC, Michael Niemira, in a press release.

Forecasts for March have been maintained, estimating that sales should remain unchanged or see a decrease of less than 1% compared to the same period of last year.