China's retail sales record first expansion

China's retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of consumption growth, expanded for the first time this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.

Customers purchase electronic goods at a duty-free store of a shopping mall in Haikou, south China's Hainan province, July 1, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

In August, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 3.36 trillion yuan (about US$492.08 billion), rising 0.5 percent year on year.

In the first eight months, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 23.8 trillion yuan, down 8.6 percent year on year, narrowing by 1.3 percentage points compared with that in the first seven months.

The sales of communication equipment and cosmetics expanded 25.1 percent and 19 percent in August, respectively.

Meanwhile, the country's online sales rose 9.5 percent year on year to reach 7.03 trillion yuan in the first eight months, widening by 0.5 percentage points from that in the January-July period.

The figures are part of a series of indicators released by the NBS, including industrial production and fixed-asset investment, which showed the economy on a recovery track amid effective epidemic control.