BEIJING (Reuters) - China's retail sales rose by around 12 percent in 2014 to roughly 26.6 trillion yuan ($4.28 trillion), the Commerce Ministry said late on Monday.

The country's statistics agency is due to release official 2014 economic data at 0200 GMT on Tuesday. Economists expect economic growth to have slowed to 7.2 per cent in the fourth quarter, the weakest since the start of 2009.

Economists polled by Reuters expected retail sales to have grown 11.7 per cent from a year earlier in December, flat from the growth in November.