Retail sales increased by 11.6% in the month of July, and 9.9% in the year.

However when car sales are excluded, there was an increase of just 0.6% last month and 6.6% in the annual figure.

The motor trade had the largest month on month increase, up by 22.9%.

Other sectors which saw a big rise in sales were furniture and lighting - up by 6.7% - and bars, which grew by 4.4%.

But the areas with the largest decreases were hardware, paints and glass - down 3.5% - books and newspapers dropped by 2.4%, and food was down by 1.4%.

There was an increase of 9.4% in the value of retail sales in July 2015 when compared with June - and annual growth of 6.5% when compared with July last year.

With motor trades excluded, there was a monthly increase of 0.3% and an annual increase of 3.3%.