Euro Zone retail sales data for the first month of the year gained 0.8% from December and 0.9% on a yearly basis, defeating all the forecasts. Eurostat said sales of food, drinks and tobacco rose 1.0% from December, and the non-food sector recorded a 0.5% increase. Compared with past year, the sales of food, drinks and tobacco were down 0.2%, while non-food sector sales bounded 1.8%. Germany posted the largest gain on monthly retail sales, with a of 2.7% increase. Spain and France were the only countries that showed a decline in January total retail trade. The future for all the European economies is still uncertain. ''Some of the factors that have thus far sustained buoyant overall growth may no longer do so further out,'' stated Jean-Philippe Cotis, chief economist at the Organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD). ''One source of risk in this regard stems from stretched valuations in some housing markets,'' he concluded.