Consumer Goods Market Continues to Grow Rapidly

　　The National Bureau of Statistics released today the total retail sales of consumer goods in July 2018. In this regard, Lu Shan, a senior statistician from the Department of Trade and Foreign Economy of the National Bureau of Statistics, gave his interpretation.

　　1. Market retail sales generally maintained rapid growth

　　In July, the consumer goods market still maintained a market size of more than RMB3 trillion in a single month. From a year-on-year perspective, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 8.8%, a slight decrease of 0.2 percentage point over June, but 0.3 percentage point higher than that in May. From a month-on-month perspective, regardless of the seasonal factor, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 0.67% in July compared with June, which was higher than that in May and the same as that in April. From January to July, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 9.3% year-on-year, which was basically the same as that of the first half of the year. Overall, the consumer goods market maintained rapid growth.

　　2. Emerging industries continued to maintain a good development trend

　　With the gradual increase in Internet penetration and the continuous expansion of online shopping users, emerging consumption such as online retail continued to grow rapidly. From January to July, China's online retail sales amounted to RMB4.7863 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 29.3%. Specifically, the retail sales of physical goods was 3.6461 trillion, up 29.1% which was 19.8 percentage points higher than the total retail sales of social consumer goods, and accounted for 17.3% in the total retail sales of social consumer goods, up 3.5 percentage points over the same period last year.

　　3. Sales of basic life goods increased steadily

　　In July, sales of basic life goods such as food, clothing, and daily necessities closely related to people's livelihood continued to grow steadily and rapidly. Specifically, retail sales of cereal and oil food and clothing products of enterprises above designated size increased by 9.5% and 9.1%, respectively, which were 3.8 and 3.4 percentage points higher than that of retail sales of consumer goods of enterprises above designated size; retail sales of daily commodities increased by 11.3% year-on-year, maintaining double-digit growth.

　　4. The decline in retail sales of automotive products narrowed, and the growth of retail sales of petroleum products accelerated

　　With the implementation of the tariff adjustment policy for automobile products, in July, the retail sales of automotive products of enterprises above designated size narrowed by 5.0 percentage points. Because of factors such as the continuous increase in vehicle ownership and the expanding year-on-year increase in fuel prices, the growth rate of oil and related products increased by 1.9 percentage points over the previous month.

　　5. Tourism and culture markets continued to expand rapidly

　　As a result of the increasing willingness of residents to travel and the improvement in the tourism market environment, tourism consumption continued to grow. According to the data of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of domestic tourists exceeded 2.8 billion in the first half of the year, an increase of 11.4% year-on-year; domestic tourism revenue exceeded RMB2.4 trillion, an increase of 12.5%. The accommodation and catering industries closely related to tourism activities grew rapidly. From January to July, the turnover of accommodation and catering businesses above designated size increased by 6.8% and 8.6%, respectively, maintaining steady and rapid growth.

　　In terms of cultural consumption, related goods and services grew rapidly. From January to July, the retail sales of books, newspapers and magazines of enterprises above designated size increased by 8.4% year-on-year, up 1.3 percentage points over the same period of last year. The growth was 18.4% in July, maintaining a rapid growth trend. In terms of the film market, according to the statistics of the Office of National Film Development Funds Management Committee , in July, the national film box office totaled nearly RMB7 billion and the number of people watching film registered about 200 million, up 94.6% and 88.9% month-on-month.