China's consumer spending has continued to gain traction with faster sales growth and improving consumer sentiment thanks to favorable government policies.
The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in October, driven by the national trade-in program, household appliances and audio-visual equipment reported a 39.2 percent surge in combined sales compared to a year earlier. Furniture and automobiles also saw increases of 7.4 percent and 3.7 percent in sales, respectively.
According to the Ministry of Commerce, early November saw sales at key retailers enterprises of household appliances and communication equipment rising by 45 percent and 28 percent, respectively.
By November 11, nearly 21.61 million consumers had purchased around 32.72 million units of eight categories of home appliances and, by midnight on Tuesday, the number of applications for automobile scrapping and renewal subsidies nationwide had passed four million.
In the first 10 months, retail sales at convenience stores grew by 4.7 percent year on year, and retail sales at membership-only warehouse clubs maintained double-digit growth.
Meanwhile, spending on services continued its rapid growth, while the cultural and tourism markets also continued to heat up.
From January to October, service retail sales increased by 6.5 percent on a yearly basis, 3.3 percentage points higher than the retail sales of goods in the same period. Among them, the retail sales of transportation and communication information services maintained double-digit growth.
"As the efforts to support the trade-in programs in consumer goods continue to be implemented in detail, a package of incremental policies focusing on expanding domestic demand is being formulated and implemented at a faster pace. With consumer confidence on the rise and the traditional peak season for consumption in the fourth quarter adding to the momentum, we anticipate that the consumption of bulk commodities and services will continue to expand, and the overall consumer consumption will continue to maintain a recovery trend," said Li Ziwen, an associate researcher of the institute of industrial economics and technological economics under the National Development and Reform Commission.
China's consumer market shows continued recovery
China's consumer market shows continued recovery
