China posts highest retail sales growth in Nov

A Chinese mom shops for milk formula while carrying her baby in a supermarket in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.[Photo/IC]

BEIJING - China's retail sales of consumer goods rose 11.2 percent year on year in November, the highest monthly growth rate so far this year, official data showed on Saturday.

With November holding the hugely successful online shopping festival Singles' Day, total retail sales of consumer goods stood at 2.79 trillion yuan ($434 billion) last month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In the 11 months ending in November, total sales rose 10.6 percent from a year earlier to 27.23 trillion yuan, unchanged from the growth for the first 10 months.

On Nov 11, or Singles' Day, a nationwide shopping spree saw Alibaba Tmall's online sales jump 60 percent to reach 91.2 billion yuan. The second-ranking JD.com, though much smaller in volume, said 32 million orders were placed in the day, up 130 percent from last year.

In the first 11 months, online sales surged by 34.5 percent year on year to 3.45 trillion yuan, accounting for 12.6 percent in gross retail sales, NBS data showed.

NBS figures also showed that retail sales in China's rural areas expanded by 12.2 percent in November, outpacing the rate of 11 percent for sales in urban areas.

Strong retail sales indicated that pro-consumption policies are taking effect. It also offered a relief for Chinese policy-makers as they try to restructure the Chinese economy to a more consumption- and service-driven model to sustain growth, albeit at a slower rate.