Russian Retail-Sales Growth Unexpectedly Gains Amid Turmoil
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Russia’s retail-sales growth unexpectedly accelerated to the fastest in six months as people snapped up consumer goods out of concern prices will rise further amid the country’s worst currency crisis since 1998.
Sales gained 1.8 percent last month from a year earlier, after rising a revised 1.6 percent in October, the Federal Statistics Service in Moscow said today in a statement. The median forecast of 21 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 1.1 percent increase. Real disposable incomes unexpectedly fell, plunging 4.7 percent, the most in eight months.