CAPE TOWN Two conflicting pictures of the country's retail sector emerge from figures reported by Statistics SA and from retail organisation, the Retailers' Liaison Committee.

For example, for the month of May, Stats SA reported that total nonadjusted retail sales rose about 11% compared with May last year.

Broken down by key categories, clothing, footwear and textile sales rose 12%, furniture and household appliance sales rose about 6% and stationers and bookstore sales fell 10%.

According to the committee report for the same month, retail sales grew 16% compared with a year previously. Clothing and footwear sales rose 13,6% over 12 months. Furniture, appliance and audio sales rose 19,7%, and stationery and books dropped 2,9%.

But financial analysts and corporations tend to cite the committee figures, particularly for clothing retailers.

There are a number of reasons. The first, but not necessarily the most important, is that the committee reports faster. It released May trading figures on July 3 whereas Stats SA reported retail sales for May on August 6.

A more important consideration is that the committee provides relevant information for comparing sales trends, especially for listed companies.

Its clothing and footwear category, for example, consists of actual sales reported by all the country's biggest clothing and footwear retailers, including Edcon, Foschini, Pep Stores, Ackermans, Queenspark, Mr Price, Woolworths and Topics.

It even reports sales in this category by more general merchandise retailers such as Makro, Dion, Shoprite and Pick 'n Pay. Stats SA's figures also include small and independent retailers who are not members of the committee.

Paul Reddy of AC Nielsen, who are secretaries to the committee, says the figures are exactly as reported by retailers, and are audited figures.

However, a couple of the committee's categories are more problematic than clothing. Furniture and appliances sales cover only the cash discounters and exclude the bigger companies that offer hire purchase sales.

Reddy said one of the furniture credit retailers withdrew its sales report a few years ago over a tax matter. Other furniture credit retailers who had been willing to contribute pulled out of the survey because they felt it was not representative enough.

Work is being done with the hire purchase companies to bring them back into the survey, Reddy said.