China's retail sales up 12.4% in Q1

BEIJING - China's retail sales grew 12.4 percent year-on-year to 5.5451 trillion yuan ($887.22 billion) in the first quarter of 2013, new data has shown.

The growth rate was down 2.4 percentage points from the first quarter of 2012 and 1.9 percentage points from the whole year of 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

The bureau attributed the slower growth to a slow-down in the catering sector due to the government's high-profile efforts to curb fiscal spending.

Of the total, urban consumption expanded 12.2 percent year-on-year to 4.79 trillion yuan in the first quarter, while rural residents spent 755.7 billion yuan, up 13.9 percent.

The catering sector reported 589 billion yuan in revenues in the first quarter, up 8.5 percent from a year earlier, while the retail goods trade was valued at 4.96 trillion yuan, up 12.9 percent.

After being adjusted for inflation, retail sales rose 10.8 percent in the period.