As has been revealed by a report released by Statistics Canada on Friday, customers looking to make the most of the home-improvement tax credit ended up driving retail sales for the month of January by a larger-than-expected 0.7%.

Analysts had, on an average, expected a rise on 0.6%.

"Stores selling home-improvement products were large contributors to the gain in January, the final month of the federal government's home-renovation tax credit", the agency shared.

A rise of 6% was recorded by sales across home centers and hardware stores, and the sale of specialized building material and those of garden stores climbed by a whopping 14%.

Economists Derek Holt and Karen Cordes Woods at Scotia Capital, while saying that this was just another consecutive better-than-expected retail sales report, pointed out that most of the hikes recorded were mainly because of the higher prices, as volumes had only managed to rise by a mere 0.1% month-on-month.

Since September of 2009, retail sales have been rising, and essentially in the positive territory. It seems that it is now safe to say that the Canadian economy is stabilizing.