China's retail sales of consumer goods up 18.7% in November  

China's retail sales of consumer goods grew 18.7 percent in November year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Saturday.

Retail sales of consumer goods stood at 1.39 trillion yuan (208.1 billion U.S. dollars) in November and the growth rate was 0.1 percentage points higher than that in October, the NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun said at a press conference.

Retail sales of consumer goods in the January-to-November period reached 13.92 trillion yuan, up 18.4 percent from the same period last year.

The growth rate in the January-to-November period was 0.1 percentage points higher than that in the January-to-October period.

The NBS said urban consumption hit 1.2 trillion yuan in November, up 19 percent year on year.

Rural residents spent 186.5 billion yuan on consumption goods in November, up 17 percent year on year.

In breakdown, catering sector sales rose 19.6 percent to 160.1 billion yuan in November from a year earlier, while retail sales increased 18.6 percent to 1.23 trillion yuan in November year on year.