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China's retail sales up 16.3 per cent in Q1

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CIOL Bureau
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China retail salesBANGALORE, INDIA: China's retail sales of consumer goods rose 16.3 per cent year on year to 4.29 trillion yuan ($657.29 billion) in the first quarter this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Friday.

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NBS spokesperson Sheng Laiyun said the retail sales of March grew 17.4 per cent from a year earlier, and edged up 1.34 per cent from February.

Urban retail sales of consumer goods grew 16.4 per cent to 3.7248 trillion yuan in the first quarter, while retail sales in rural areas rose 15.8 per cent to 567.4 billion yuan from a year earlier, Xinhua quoted Sheng as saying.

"Although market sales have witnessed steady growth, the sales of products associated with housing and transport have grown less strongly than a year earlier, such as furniture and automobiles," he said.

Sales of furniture in the first quarter climbed 24.5 per cent from a year earlier, 13.1 percentage points lower than the growth of the same period last year, while automobile sales grew 14.2 per cent, 25.6 percentage points less than last year.

Other products like home appliances and oil products also saw weaker growth compared with a year earlier.