TOKYO (AFX-ASIA) - The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it has left its assessment of retail sales unchanged, saying they are currently weak, despite the sharp fall in large-store sales in October. Retail sales fell 7.1 pct year-on-year in October after declining by a revised 0.7 pct in September. The decline was the largest since November 1999. "All retail sectors this month fell into negative territory. There were no sectors that pushed up overall consumption," a METI official said. "However, the consumption trend has generally not changed dramatically. We would like to monitor the situation for some time before changing our assessment," he said. Large-store retail sales in October fell largely due to a slump in clothing and supermarket sales after shoppers bought Autumn clothes during the cold weather in September, rather than waiting till October. Clothing fell 8.4 pct in October. Supermarket sales fell 10.7 pct due to the high base last year, boosted by Fukuoka winning the Pacific League baseball championship. Fukuoka supermarket sales fell 26.1 pct in October. However, the official said the outbreak of mad-cow disease did not have a major impact on department-store sales as "the consumer has shifted to pork or chicken, rather than beef". Overall large department store sales fell 2.5 pct. The ministry made a minor adjustment to its retail sales calculations, recalculating figures back to 1995 using the base set in 2000.