Russia retail sales down 5.9pc y/y in Dec, worse than f'cast

Retail sales contracted 5.9 percent in the last month of 2016 after dropping 4.1 percent in November.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast an annual drop of 3.3 in December retail sales.

In the whole of 2016, retail sales, the main contributor to Russia's economic performance, dropped 5.2 percent.