BEIJING -- Sales of China's lodging and catering sector reported a 15.3 percent year on year increase to 492.86 billion yuan (US$61.6 billion) in the first half of the year, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Commerce.

The growth rate was 2 percentage points higher than the growth in China's retail sales of consumer goods, said the ministry's market operation department.

Statistics also showed that sales from the lodging and catering sector accounted for 13.5 percent of the country's total retail sales of consumer goods during the six-month period.

The department predicted that the sector's retails sales will reach nearly 598 billion yuan in the second half of this year.

The ministry said from January to June, it approved 536 new foreign-invested lodging and catering enterprises, with the contractual use of foreign funds totaling 1.43 billion dollars, up 15.6 percent, while the actual use of foreign funds amounted to 380 million dollars, a rise of 48.6 percent.