Retail sales climb

CHINA’S retail sales of consumer goods climbed 4.3 percent year on year to 3.86 trillion yuan (US$584.5 billion) in October, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

The growth picked up from the 3.3-percent gain in September after the major consumption gauge posted its first positive growth this year in August by rising 0.5 percent year on year.

Excluding auto consumption, retail sales went up 3.6 percent year on year last month.

In the first 10 months, retail sales went down 5.9 percent year on year, with the decline narrowing by 1.3 percentage points from the drop in the first three quarters.

Garment industry

GARMENT industry in China has seen better performance amid the country’s effective epidemic control measures and a rebound in global demand.

From January to September, the combined operating revenue of major garment enterprises declined 13.46 percent year on year to 948.15 billion yuan (about US$143billion), data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed.

The contraction narrowed 0.9 percentage points from the decline in the first eight months.

Investment rises

CHINA’S investment in property development rose 6.3 percent year on year in the first 10 months of 2020, picking up from the 5.6-percent increase in the first nine months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said yesterday.

Total property investment in the period stood at 11.66 trillion yuan (about US$1.77 trillion), the NBS said.

Investment in residential buildings came in at 8.63 trillion yuan, up 7 percent from the same period last year, quickening from the 6.1-percent rise in Jan.-Sept. period.