Consumer goods retail sales drop 19% in Q1

China's total retail sales of consumer goods dropped 19 percent year-on-year to 7.86 trillion yuan ($1.11 trillion) in the first quarter of this year, according the Ministry of Commerce. 

The ministry said that consumption decline was due to the COVID-19 outbreak during the three-month period.

With the work of COVID-19 prevention and control being conducted steadily and positively across China, the government said the nation's consumption market became more active in March, featuring stabilized sales and steadily declining prices for goods. 

China online retail sales grew by 5.9 percent year-on-year between January and March this year; the growth rate was 2.9 percentage points higher than the January-February period. 

The ministry saw notable consumption growth of daily necessities last month, while spending on grain, edible oil and foodstuff surged 19.2 percent on a yearly basis, while their purchases of beverage products, and traditional Chinese and western medicine jumped 6.3 percent and 8 percent, year-on-year, respectively. 

As a series of policy measures have been taken by the government to spur domestic demand, the ministry said consumers' confidence will gradually recover and steadily rebound. The epidemic situation will not change China's long-term and stable consumption trend and its continuous upgrade.