Good question, it is very important to understand the difference between evidence and an inference.
"Recent figures show that consumers are buying more durable goods than before..."
This is just a fact. A statistic like this is almost always presented as evidence. In this case, it is the only piece of evidence, which is why E is correct.
However, there are different ways to interpret a fact, which is where the arguments/inferences come into play. The author interprets the evidence as "... indicating that they expect economic growth in the future."
The first half of the sentence is the evidence, and the second half is the inference. Answer choice D has it backwards, which is why it is incorrect.
