China’s retail sales grow at fastest pace for 2 decades

Chinese retail sales increased by 22 percent last April, and across the year recorded sales worth 814.2 billion yuan due to the increase in food, jewellery and car sales.

The National Bureau of Statistics said consumer spending in Asia’s second-largest economy are buoyant and that retail sales in the first four months showed an increase of 21 per cent.

In a breakdown of the main areas of growth, within retail sales, food and cooking oils were up 36.3 per cent, whilst by meat and eggs gained 30.8 per cent.

In the higher end of the market, jewellery namely gold, silver and other precious stones increased by 41 per cent and automobile sales gained 25.7 per cent.

There are also regional variations, as retail sales of consumer goods in urban areas rose 22.9 percent to 555.9 billion yuan.

Retail sales of consumer goods at county level or below were only 258.3 billion yuan, so demography is an important factor, as is the trend of continued urbanisation and expansion.

The yuan traded at 6.9872 versus the dollar closing yesterday at 6.9882, although inflation is running close to its fastest pace since 1996 and sales figures have been overstated by inflation.

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