LONDON: UK retail sales unexpectedly dropped in May for the first time in three months and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said the economic recovery may be sluggish as banks ration credit.

Sales declined 0.6 percent from April, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday in London.

Economists predicted a 0.3 percent increase, the median of 28 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey shows. Sales dropped 1.6 percent from a year earlier. The pound fell.