Chinese retail sales in July rose 16.4 percent year-on-year to
reach 699.8 billion yuan (US$92 billion), the National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday.?
The retail sales volume totaled more than 4.9 trillion yuan
(US$644.7 billion) from January to July, up 15.5 percent.
Retail sales volume of the housing and catering sectors went up
by 18 percent to 92.3 billion yuan (US$12 billion) and that of the
wholesale and retail sectors were up 16.5 percent to 592.4 billion
yuan (US$77.9 billion).
Sales of grain and oil rose by 45 percent and that of meat,
poultry and eggs by 51 percent.
Retail sales in the first half rose 15.4 percent, which is 2.1
percentage points higher than the figure of the same period last
year, according to the NBS.
"The changes in domestic demand since the beginning of the year
are what we have expected," said NBS spokesman Li Xiaochao. He
attributed the fast growth in consumption to the rapid growth in
people's income and spending.
In urban regions, the inflation-adjusted disposable income per
capita went up 14.2 percent to 7,052 yuan in the first half of this
year, four percentage points higher than the same period of last
year. Meanwhile, rural residents enjoyed an income increase of 13.3
percent to 2,111 yuan, up 1.4 percentage points, according to the
NBS.
Chinese wage earners spent an average of 18.13 days on vacation
last year, according to a survey released by Horizonkey, a leading
domestic consulting and research institute.
The good performance of Chinese enterprises in recent years and
the government subsidies for low-income residents and farmers as
well as higher minimum wages for rural workers helped increase the
income of urban and rural residents, Li said.
China's consumer price index (CPI) rose by a 33-month-high 5.6
percent in July on food price hikes.
(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2007)
