China's VAT data shows growing spending on equipment renewals by firms

BEIJING -- China's State Taxation Administration on Thursday released value-added tax (VAT) invoice data, which reveals growth in firms' spending on equipment renewals and rising sales of home appliances in the first three quarters of this year.

Boosted by the equipment-renewal and consumer goods trade-in programs backed by the government, the value of enterprises' purchases of machinery equipment increased 9.4 percent year-on-year in the period, the data showed.

In particular, machinery equipment purchases in the high-tech manufacturing sector grew 14 percent year-on-year, while firms' purchases of digitized equipment grew 18.6 percent.

During the same period, the retail sales revenue for home appliances such as refrigerators grew 48.3 percent year-on-year, while retail sales for audio-visual gadgets saw a 26.8 percent growth.

Retail sales revenue for furniture increased by 33.2 percent year-on-year, while the sales revenue for cell phones grew 19.9 percent.

The trade-in programs have also boosted China's car consumption. Latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed that China's new energy vehicle sales surged 34.9 percent year-on-year to nearly 11.23 million units in the first nine months of this year, accounting for 46.1 percent of total vehicle sales in China.