Singapore’s retail sales, excluding motor vehicles, rose for a ninth month in July as a booming job market and higher tourist arrivals boosted spending.

The index measuring purchases excluding automobiles climbed 6% from a year earlier, after gaining a revised 4.8% in June, the Statistics Department said today. Including vehicles, which are sold subject to government caps, total retail sales fell 1.2%, less than the median forecast for a 2.7% decline in a Bloomberg News survey of seven economists.

 

Singapore is in the running to be the world’s fastest- growing economy in 2010 after expanding a record 17.9% in the first six months of the year. The city state added more than 61,000 jobs from January to June as accelerating growth and tourists lured by the opening of two casino-resorts spurred demand for goods and services.

 

“Excluding car sales, the retail outlook continues to brighten on strong domestic employment and wage growth,” Alvin Liew, a Singapore-based economist at Standard Chartered Plc, said before the report. “Record inflows of tourists into Singapore also helped.”

 

Monthly tourist arrivals in Singapore exceeded the 1 million mark for the first time in July, aided by the opening of casino-resorts run by Genting Singapore Plc and Las Vegas Sands Corp. A government labor report today showed wages before adjusting for inflation grew 5.8% in the three months through June.

 

Adjusted for seasonal factors, overall retail sales rose 3.2% from June, today’s report showed.

 

Singapore controls pollution and congestion on its roads by selling limited permits for each automobile category, and the quotas may distort sales figures because motor vehicles are the biggest component of the retail index, accounting for a third of the gauge.