China's retail sales up 3.1% in June

BEIJING -- China's retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of the country's consumption strength, went up 3.1 percent year-on-year in June, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Friday.

This growth reversed declines seen in April and May.

Last month, the country's retail sales increased by 0.53 percent on monthly basis to 3.87 trillion yuan (about $573 billion), according to the NBS.

During the second quarter, retail sales dropped 4.6 percent year-on-year, causing the first-half figure to drop 0.7 percent compared with the Jan-June period last year.

The catering sector saw its combined revenue in June fall 4 percent from last June. During the first half, the revenue of the catering sector fell 7.7 percent year-on-year.

Online retail sales increased 3.1 percent year-on-year in the first half, according to the NBS.

Friday's data also showed that China's gross domestic product rose 2.5 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2022, with the figure standing at 0.4 percent in the second quarter.