BEIJING, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) — China’s retail sales of consumer goods climbed 4.3 percent year on year to 3.86 trillion yuan (about 584.5 billion U.S. dollars) in October, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday.
The growth picked up from the 3.3-percent gain in September after the major consumption gauge posted its first positive growth this year in August by rising 0.5 percent year on year.
Excluding auto consumption, retail sales went up 3.6 percent year on year last month.
In the first ten months, retail sales went down 5.9 percent year on year, with the decline narrowing by 1.3 percentage points from the drop in the first three quarters.
Online consumption remained a bright spot, with online retail sales rising 10.9 percent year on year in the January-October period.