Russian retail sales jump as shoppers offload tumbling rouble

Moscow

RUSSIAN retail sales surged the most in more than two years as consumers enduring the country's worst currency crisis since 1998 accelerated purchases to mitigate the effect of a sinking rouble.

December sales jumped 5.3 per cent from a year earlier, quicker than November's 1.8 per cent advance, the Federal Statistics Service said on Wednesday. The median forecast of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 2.8 per cent increase. Wages adjusted for inflation fell 4.7 per cent. "We can see the panic that occurred in December," Dmitry Polevoy, an economist at ING Groep in Moscow, said before the release. First-quarter retail sales may contract, while "inflation will accelerate further and salary growth will continue to slow in the public and private sector," he added.