China's retail sales surged 14.3 percent from the previous year to 699.8 billion yuan in October, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday.

 

The retail sales of oil and oil products registered the highest growth of 32.7 percent, with that of construction and decoration materials second with 30.4 percent. Retail sales of home electrical appliances increased by 25.8 percent.

 

The NBS said retail sales had been on the increase ever since the beginning of the year.

 

The growth of retail sales for the first half of the year was 13.3 percent. It rose to 13.7 percent in July, 13.8 percent in August and 13.9 percent in September.

 

The retail sales for the first 10 months stood at 6.2089 trillion yuan, up 13.6 percent on the previous year.

 

Although the growth of retail sales has risen, analysts said it was still far behind the growth of investment. The country's fixed assets investment shot up by 27.3 percent in the first three quarters.

 

This means China still has a long way to go if it wants consumption to replace investment as the main engine of its economic growth, the analysts said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)