China retail sales rises 10.2% in Jan-Feb

BEIJING - China's retail sales of consumer goods grew 10.2 percent year on year in the first two months of 2016, official data showed Saturday.

The rate slowed from the 11.1-percent growth recorded in December 2015 and 10.7-percent for the entire 2015, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

NBS data showed that total retail sales of consumer goods stood at 5.29 trillion yuan ($815.2 billion) in the first two months of 2016.

Of the total, retail sales in China's urban areas accounted for nearly 86 percent, while rural areas contributed the remaining 14 percent. But retail sales in rural areas expanded by 10.9 percent, outpacing the 10.1 percent rate for sales in urban areas.

In the first two months, online sales surged by 27.2 percent year on year to 636.1 billion yuan, accounting for about 12 percent in gross retail sales, NBS data showed.

Chinese policy-makers have been working hard in trying to restructure the economy to a more consumption- and service-driven model to sustain growth, albeit at a slower rate.

In 2015, consumption contributed 66.4 percent to China's GDP in 2015, up 15.4 percentage points from 2014.