>>REAL-TIME UPDATES IN THE WIRE. CLICK HERE<<<
China’s retail sales grew by 5.4% to 3.6 trillion yuan in August from a year earlier, according to NBS data, compared to 2.7% growth in July, expected 3.5% growth. Retail sales excluding automobiles rose 4.3% on year to 3.2 trillion yuan.
In breakdown, retail sales of physical goods reached 3.25 trillion yuan, rising by 5.1% from a year earlier, and catering sales reached 374.8 billion yuan, rising 8.4% from a year ago, showed the data.
In the first eight months of the year, China’s retail sales reached 28.26 trillion yuan, rising by 0.5% from the same period last year, and retail sales excluding automobiled reached 25.4 trillion yuan, rising by 0.7% from a year ago.
Online retail sales reached 8.43 trillion yuan in the first eight months of the year, rising 3.7% from a year earlier, and that included 7.24 trillion yuan of online sales of physical goods, rising 5.8% from a year ago and accounting for 25.6% from China’ total retail sales.
