The Scottish Retail Consortium figures show that the growth in total sales value, comparing last month with February 2006, is the fastest annual pace of increase since a rate of 9.4% in August last year. The latest 9.2% pace marks a significant acceleration from annual growth of 8.5% in January - which was itself a heady number.

Annual growth of food sales in Scotland eased from 11.1% in January to 10.3% last month, but the non-food category showed a marked acceleration in growth from 6.1% to 8.1%. Demand for clothing was firm overall, even though unseasonably mild weather dampened demand for heavy coats and knitwear.

Figures last week from the British Retail Consortium showed total sales value UK-wide accelerated from 5.2% in January to 5.6% in February, meaning that the gulf with the pace of increase in Scotland widened last month.

Andrew McLaughlin, chief economist at SRC survey sponsor Royal Bank of Scotland, cited two likely explanations for the consistently stronger pace of sales growth north of the Border.

In the last 13 months, annual growth of Scottish retail sales value has dipped below that UK-wide only once. Even then it was only marginally, with 9.7% annual growth in Scotland pipped by a 9.8% rate UK-wide in April last year.

The difference has been great in most of the other 12 months in which Scotland has been in the lead. And Scotland has been enjoying a heady pace of annual sales growth ever since this jumped from 2.1% in March last year to 9.7% the following month, with 6.6% being the slowest pace recorded since.

There appear to be two quite significant supports (for) strong retail sales in Scotland, versus other parts of the United Kingdom.

McLaughlin acknowledged retail sales performance in Scotland "has been stronger for some time".

Asked why consumers in Scotland were fuelling much greater retail sales growth, McLaughlin replied: "I think there are two potential explanations for this. One of them is that, on a wealth per head basis, Scotland has higher wealth per head than most other regions of the UK. If you exclude London and the south-east (of England), Scotland outperforms all of the other UK regions. It is the case that, outside London and the south-east, wealth per head in Scotland is pretty high in UK terms. One might expect to see some buoyancy in retail sales on account of that.

"(The) second thing is that the affordability measures in the housing market are more favourable in Scotland – indicators such as house price to earnings ratio. We don't tend, on average, to have to spend quite as much on housing costs as other parts of the UK, which should leave more disposable income available for consumer spending or savings and other things."

He added: "There appear to be two quite significant supports (for) strong retail sales in Scotland, versus other parts of the United Kingdom."

Today's survey from the SRC signals Scottish consumers are so far unperturbed by the three quarter-point rises in base rates since last August, which have taken them to 5.25%.

The SRC survey showed strong demand for healthy eating and premium food ranges. Valentine's Day boosted sales of perfumes and cosmetics.

David Fenton, senior economic adviser at Royal Bank of Scotland, noted that the launch in February of the new Microsoft Vista operating system had boosted sales of laptop computers.

Stripping out the beneficial impact of the net expansion of retail space through store openings and expansions, annual growth of retail sales value in Scotland on a "like-for-like" basis accelerated from 4.0% to 4.1%. This was ahead of a corresponding UK-wide rate of 3.3%.

Fiona Moriarty, director of the SRC, appeared at pains to play down the strength of Scottish retail sales.

Appearing to refer to annual growth in like-for-like sales of 0.8% in February 2006 and the rise in the rate of increase on this basis from 4.0% in January to 4.1% last month, she said: "Although these figures indicate the strongest year-on-year sales growth since last August, they are only marginally up on January and look better than they really are because the comparison is with minimal growth a year ago."

However, the 9.2% annual growth in total Scottish retail sales value came on top of a reasonably strong rate of 4.1% on this basis in February 2006.

And Moriarty added: "Overall, these are good figures, but it is clear that the effects of the two recent interest rate rises (November and January) have yet to influence consumer spending, and that consumers in Scotland remain more resilient than those in the UK."

The SRC survey covers the four weeks from January 28 to February 24.