South Africa's retail sales up 1.7 percent year/year in May

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African retail sales rose by 1.7 percent year-on-year in May, beating market expectations, after increasing by revised 2 percent in April, data from the statistics office showed on Wednesday. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.3 percent year-on-year fall in retail sales in May. On a month-on-month basis, sales rose by 0.9 percent and were up 1.5 percent in the three months to May compared with the same period last year, Statistics South Africa said. (Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by James Macharia)