In this April, the retail sale of consumer goods reached 466.33 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 12.2%.

    Analyzed by region, the retail sale of consumer goods in the urban area was 313.45 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 13.1%, that in the area at the county level and below was 152.88 billion yuan, up 10.4%.

    Analyzed by industry, the retail sale of wholesale and retail trade reached 389.97 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 11.8%; that of catering trade reached 62.01 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 18.4%; that of other industries totaled 14.35 billion yuan, roughly keeping the same growth rate with last April.

    Analyzed by commodity category, the retail sale of foods, clothes and daily-used articles in the wholesale and retail enterprises above designated size went up 13.6%, 15.3% and 19.5% respectively.

    The main characteristics of market sale were as follows:

    First of all, the market of consumer goods continued to grow with the steady increase momentum. Compared with the first quarter of this year, the retail sale of consumer goods in this April showed a 1.5-percentage-point-less year-on-year rise. Because the retail price index went up slowly, the retail sale of consumer goods in this April went up 11.5% in real growth rate over last April which was 0.4 percentage point less than the year-on-year rise of the first quarter.

    Secondly, the market sale in the rural area grew faster. According to the data from the sampling survey of rural households, the per capita cash income of farmers presented a year-on-year real rise of 11.9%, up by 2.7 percentage points over the rise of last April and lower than the rise of 3 percentage points in the first quarter.

    Thirdly, in terms of statistics of the retail sale of the wholesale and retail trade above designated size, the sales growing trend of main commodities is not changed with the changes of structure.

    1.The retail sale of foods and clothes went up steadily. In this April, the retail sale of foods and clothes presented the year-on-year rises of 13.6% and 15.3% respectively, down by 3.2 and 3.6 percentage points over the rises of the first quarter, but that of articles for using was up 19.5% year on year, 3 percentage points higher than that of the first quarter with the typical seasonal changes. The commodities with faster rise were the following: the price of the petroleum and its products registered a year-on-year rise of 44.5%, that of cultural and office articles rose 27.5%, that of furniture went up 26.5%, that of books, newspaper and magazines was up 20.4%, that of traditional Chinese and western medicines went up 12.5%, that of articles for sports and recreation went up 29.8%, that of cosmetics was up 18.2%, that of gold, silver and pearl jewelry was up 12.1%, that of daily-used articles rose 11.5%, that of grains and oils was up 28.7%, that of meat, poultry and eggs was up 16.1%, that of clothes was up 16.8%.

    2. The sale of autos and related products showed a sign of the increased rise. In this April, the retail sale of autos and related products went up 13% year on year, nearly 3 percentage points higher than the rise of the first quarter.