According to the Mexican association Antad, its members’ same-store sales rose by 3 percent in October as compared to the same month a year ago, after the departmental stores showed an unusual strong sales.

Antad said that the total sales at its more than 17,000 stores grew by 9.8% from October 2008 to 67.5 billion pesos, which brought up the total year-to-date total to MXN662.1 billion.

Led by the growth in groceries sales, same-store sales at supermarkets rose by 2.3% in October, while clothing and footwear sales fell by 2.9% and general merchandise sales rose by 2%.

A sign of further improvement was seen in the form of an increase of 10.2% in comparable sales at department stores in October, which focused more on durable goods.

It was a significant improvement after the accumulated 1.8% decline in the first 10 months of the year.