Retail sales surge 17.8% y-o-y in November

Retail sales in Ukraine rose 17.8% y-o-y in November and 6.8% y-o-y in 11M10 (vs. +5.9% y-o-y in 10M10), the State Statistics Committee reported yesterday. Mykyta Mykhaylychenko: This signals a continuation in recovery in domestic demand, which lays the ground for acceleration in real GDP growth in 2011. Nonetheless, this high number is somewhat surprising to us as real salary growth decelerated from 14.6% y-o-y in June to 10.8% y-o-y in October and, hence, this could turn out to be just a one-off jump.