Harare- Truworths, Zimbabwe’s top apparel retailer and a Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed company has reported that sales for the 6 months period between July and December 2017 went up driven by outperformance at each of the 3 chain stores under its stewardship. Truworths operates 3 chain stores lines trading under the banners Truworths, Topics and Number 1. The three chain offering cut across the market, whereas Truworths is an up-market chain store while Topics is mainstream and Number 1 is a value offering. Overall group merchandise sales grew by 9.3% to $7.14 million in the 6 months period to December compared $6.5 million achieved in the same period in 2016. At Topics sales revenue grew by 4.3% while that of Truworths and Number 1 grew by 18.6% and 24.2% respectively, to support the overall group company growth. The performance at Truworths is a recovery from the previous year where all the 3 chain stores recorded plummeting double digit sales values. The trend of falling revenues in 2016 was wide and felt across most sectors of the economy retail included. The emergence of inflationary pressure in 2017, just when the economy emerged turned from deflationary era, have resulted in price pressures in the economy and companies have been having a field day maximizing returns. Likewise demand started going up against increased money balances as money supply improved against government borrowings resulting in enhanced expenditure. Across industry capacity utilisation has improved and retailers have also recorded a marked increase in their sales levels. The ease of transacting following the push for adoption of digital payment platforms also ensured sustained buying across most products in the market. For the clothing retail players the recovery has been slow but surely coming with peers Edgars also showing signs of recovery and growth at its jointly owned Jet store chain. Truworths said the number of active account holders increased by 4.7% to 90,399. In the 6 months period, profit went up to $0.5 million which compares to a loss of -$0.99 million in 2016. Prior to the half year profit the company has been reporting losses since 2015 while revenue has been on a downturn since 2014.