The national statistical office on Wednesday released its preliminary estimate showing that according to working-day adjusted statistics, retail sales in December last year grew 3.8% in nominal terms and 4.8% in real terms from the same month of 2014.
The growth rate is much faster than the month before when consumption grew 3.2% on the year and the highest increase of retail sales since September 2007 when it jumped up 7.2%.
The growth rate is also much higher than expected.
Four economic analysts polled by Hina had forecast that consumption would increase by 2.9% on the average, and their estimates ranged from 2.4% to 3.5%.
A streak of 17 straight months with increasing consumption has not been recorded since 2007, two year before the six-year-long recession started.