Russian Retail Sales Slow to 18-Month Low as Inflation Bites

Russian retail sales grew in July at the weakest pace in 18 months after faster inflation curbed consumer purchasing power, threatening to undercut a mainstay of the country’s economic growth this year.

Receipts at merchants rose 5.1 percent from a year earlier, slowing from June’s 6.9 percent to the weakest pace since January 2011, the Federal Statistics Service in Moscow said in an e-mailed statement today. That missed all 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey, which forecast 6.2 percent growth.