US businesses increased their inventories in February as sales rebounded by the biggest amount in nine months, the government reported Monday. The Commerce Department said business inventories increased 0.4 percent in February, following a 0.4 percent increase the previous month. Sales jumped 0.8 percent, rebounding from a 1.1 percent decline in January that was blamed on severe winter weather. It was the biggest monthly gain since last May. Inventories held by manufacturers rose the most in February, gaining 0.7 percent, while inventories at the wholesale level rose 0.5 percent, and inventories held by retailers were unchanged. Inventory building contributed 1.6 percentage points to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the third quarter of 2013, when the economy expanded at a 4.1 percent annual rate. But by the fourth quarter, the inventory contribution had declined to only 0.03 percentage point, and analysts do not expect inventories to add much to first-quarter growth. For the rest of this year, however, economists are optimistic that growth will rebound to a solid rate of about 3 percent, which could make 2014 the country's strongest year of growth since 2005.