(Adds detail on April data, quote) BRASILIA, June 8 (Reuters) - Brazilian retail sales rose in April at their fastest rate in more than 20 years, figures showed on Tuesday, kicking off the second quarter on a strong footing and suggesting that consumers could put Latin America’s largest economy on a solid growth path this year. Figures from government statistics agency IBGE on Tuesday showed that consumers, millions of whom benefited from revived government cash transfers to poor families in April, shrugged off the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and spent. Brazilian retail sales excluding autos and construction materials rose a seasonally adjusted 1.8% in April from March, the strongest performance for that month since 2000. The median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists was for a 0.1% rise. “With improved mobility and renewed fiscal transfers, we expect the retail sector to recover in the second quarter and expand further in the second half,” said Alberto Ramos, head of Latin American research at Goldman Sachs, also citing more vaccinations and a gradual reopening of the economy. March’s fall of 0.6% was revised to a steeper decline of 1.1%. Taken together, retail sales are now 0.9% above pre-pandemic levels from early last year, IBGE said. Sales jumped 23.8% on a year-on-year basis, boosted by base effects following the record slide in April last year, and again more than the 19.8% rise forecast in the Reuters poll. IBGE said month-on-month sales rose in seven of the eight categories surveyed in April, led by a 24.8% jump in furniture and electrical domestic goods, and a 13.8% rise in clothing and footwear. So far this year, retail sales are up 4.5% from the January-April period last year, IBGE said, although still 5.1% below the record high from October last year. On a wider basis, including cars and building materials, retail sales in April rose 3.8% on the month, surged 41% on the year, and are up 9.2% so far this year, IBGE said. By this measure, however, retail sales in Brazil were still down 6.1% from their peak in August 2012, IBGE said. (Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Paul Simao and Jonathan Oatis) Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.