Britain's "Black Friday" shopping surge saw retail sales grow at their fastest pace for nearly 27 years, CBI figures showed today.

The survey found 71% of firms reported sales volumes up on a year ago while 9% said they were down, giving a balance of 61% - the highest since January 1988.

The poll of 122 firms covered the period from November 26 to December 11, which included Black Friday - a retail strategy imported from the US when firms lure shoppers in with big promotions.

But there was a warning that consumers might simply have brought some of their shopping forward.

Barry Williams, CBI Distributive Trades Survey chairman and Asda chief merchandising officer for food, said: "The strongest sales growth for a quarter of a century is a big boost for retailers as they head towards the climax of the crucial pre-Christmas trading period.

"Black Friday price cuts, embraced more widely by more UK retailers than ever, and discounting played an important part in helping sales, encouraging more customers into stores and online to buy more widely.

"But shoppers may have caught the Christmas bug early and brought some of their spending forward. This has been a tough year for many retailers and parts of the sector are still struggling.

"Increasing disposable income from real wages growth, and falling fuel prices are giving retailers reasons for optimism but we'll need to see in the New Year whether the upbeat mood takes hold."

Grocers - engaged in a price war amid competition from Lidl and Aldi - saw the strongest year-on-year sales growth among any part of retail while furniture and carpets also did well.

The survey comes a day after Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed Black Friday helped the retail sector grow by 1.6% month on month in November, its fastest pace for 11 months

Year-on-year growth was the best for more than a decade, according to the ONS data, though the 6.4% rise compared with a period in 2013 that did not include Black Friday trading.