Growth in like-for-like annual UK retail sales picked up strongly in December from theprevious month, according to figures published by the British Retail ConsortiumTuesday. The BRC sales monitor for December showed like-for-like sales rising by3.4% on a year earlier, up from 2.0% in November. Total sales, which includes salesin new space, in the same period were up 5.5% on December last year compared withgrowth of 4.2% in November. Chief economic BRC adviser Bridget Rosewell said,"Retail sales performance this Christmas was stronger than might have been feared amonth ago." But the BRC pointed out that the pick-up in sales was limited to the lasttwo weeks of the month when there was one more trading day this year than last.Christmas shopping only really got underway from about December 21, although salesthen were also disrupted by snow. London stores suffered in the run-up to Christmasbecause of the unreliability of the rail service. Rosewell also noted that consumersremain very sensitive to price, although tighter stocking policies meant thatmarkdowns were held off until after Christmas this year. The three-month trend rate ofgrowth improved slightly for like-for-like sales to 2.4% in December from 2.2% inNovember, while that for total sales was unchanged at 4.7%. BRC director general BillMoyes said the underlying trend in retail sales remains low and called on the Bank ofEngland's Monetary Policy Committee to cut interest rates to stimulate domesticdemand. The MPC will announce its rate decision at the end of its two-day meeting onThursday at 12:00 GMT.