The credit crunch will not be a catastrophe for UK retailers, one industry body has claimed.

Richard Dodd, head of media campaigns at the British Retail Consortium explained that while firms will no doubt be hit by the economic downturn, they should not worry too much.

He said: "There will be an impact on things like part-time hours and retailers spending on training, but we are not expecting any sort of catastrophe."

Mr Dodd added that there should not be "mass retail job losses" because of the credit crunch.

Currently the situation is only a slowdown "rather than anything more severe than that", he concluded.

Recently, at the World Retail Congress in Barcelona, Sir Philip Green, chief executive of Arcadia and BHS, said that tough economic conditions will expose good and bad retailers.

He added that an innovated business model will be vital as the credit crunch hits the global economy.

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