The amount of taxable retail sales for Washington state and King County showed positive growth in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to the fourth quarter in 2010, according to recent figures released by the Washington State Department of Revenue. It is a welcome sign for both retailers and local government.

For Mercer Island, taxable retail sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 were $79,792,000, an increase of 2.2 percent over $78,086,000 in the fourth quarter of 2010.

In King County, taxable retail sales reached $10.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, up by more than five percent over a year ago.

Taxable retail sales for the state of Washington increased 4.2 percent to $27.9 billion during the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to the previous year’s results, the state agency reported last week.

Taxable retail sales is a subset of all sales that counts only retail store sales and excludes other sectors such as construction and services. Sales for those sectors were up by 3.6 percent, to $13.3 billion.

Among major industry groups, construction rose 5.8 percent to $4.3 billion; accommodations and food services rose 5.7 percent to $2.9 billion; motor vehicles and parts rose 6.5 percent to $2.6 billion; general merchandise stores were up 0.1 percent to $3.1 billion, and miscellaneous retailers were up 6.9 percent to $1.6 billion.

The amount of fourth quarter sales statewide is now back to the level where it was at the beginning of 2008. Taxable retail sales were $31.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007.