Consumer spending records robust growth in H1

Consumers shop at a mall in Chengdu, Sichuan province. [Photo/VCG]

China's consumer spending was robust in the first half year, contributing 78.5 percent to the country's economic growth, up 14.2 percentage points from a year earlier, official data showed Thursday.

The total retail sales of consumer goods has reached 18 trillion yuan from Jan-June, increasing 9.4 percent year-on-year, while the June figure showed a nine percent increment, picking up 0.5 percentage points month-on-month, Gao Feng, a spokesman with the Ministry of Commerce, said at a press conference.

Domestic consumption has become a major driver for the economic growth, said Meng Qingxin, director-general of the Trade and Foreign Economic Statistics Department of the National Bureau of Statistics. Meng noted in an article released by Economic Daily that the contribution rate of final consumption to the economy was 47.1 percentage points higher than that of gross capital formation.

With further improvement in transportation, logistics and communication and e-commerce development in rural areas, rural residents have been unleashing their consumption potential. In the first six months, retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas rose by 10.5 percent, 1.3 percentage points higher than urban areas, Meng said.

Breaking down the figures show online retailing maintained its growth momentum, surging 30.1 percent from the previous year to 4.08 trillion yuan in the first half. Of the figure, 3.13 trillion yuan was gained from physical commodity sales, raising 29.8 percent on a yearly basis and accounting for 17.4 percent of the total retail sales of consumer goods in the same period.

Online retailing in rural areas shone as its trade volume achieved 632.28 billion yuan, increasing 34.4 percent and taking up 15.5 percent in the total online retailing. Meanwhile, agricultural products also gained 90.6 billion yuan from online selling, up 39.6 percent year-on-year.

Along with the new mode of retailing, traditional business mode has been expanding its retailing channels underpinned by technologies like artificial intelligence and big data and improving consumer experiences through innovation. Gao said that sales of convenience stores, supermarkets and department stores grew 7.6 percent, 4.5 percent and 1.6 percent from Jan-June, respectively.

At the same time, sales of products for upgrading life quality were also in a steady growth. Cosmetics, home appliances and communication equipment saw their sales volume separately go up 14.2 percent, 10.6 percent and 10.6 percent, adding 2.9, 0.2, 0.5 percentage points, respectively, compared with the previous year.

And service consumption kept scaling up. Gao cited data to showed that in the first half, revenue of catering industry was 1.95 trillion yuan, accelerating 9.9 percent from a year ago; box office raked in 32 billion yuan, up 17.8 percent.

Tourism market remain in a boom as well, up to 86.4 percent of residents showed willingness to travel in the third quarter, a peak since the fourth quarter of 2013.