China's retail sales of consumer goods in August rose 13.8 percent from the previous year to 607.7 billion yuan (US$76.39 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a monthly report released on Tuesday.

Of the total, retail sales in urban China climbed 14.3 percent to 413 billion yuan while that in counties, towns and villages grew 12.8 percent to 194.7 billion yuan.

The sales volume in wholesale and retailing sectors reached 509.8 billion yuan, up 13.7 percent over last August. Catering and hotel figures were up 16.8 percent to 82.7 billion yuan.

The report said that the sales volume of food went up 17.2 percent, clothing up 18.5 percent and daily articles up 21.3 percent from August last year.

Meat, poultry and egg sales rose by 13.5 percent and grain and edible oils by 19.7 percent in August.

The accumulated retail sales of consumer goods over the first eight months grew 13.5 percent year-on-year to 4.8538 trillion yuan, said the report.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2006)