Goods for delivery pile up at a distribution center for courier company Shentong Express in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, on Nov 11, 2013. [Meng Delong / China Daily]

BEIJING -- The Chinese economy, which saw a notable slowdown early this year, has recovered solidly based on latest data, and analysts expect the recovery momentum to be stable.

One of the most convincing indicators emerged on Monday, or "Singles' Day." Originally designated as an alternative to Valentine's Day, November 11 has been more recently turned into a virtual shopping day, or the Chinese version of "Cyber Monday," by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.com.

A 24-hour online shopping spree on Monday, fueled by heavy discounts, ended with a record high sales volume of a staggering 35 billion yuan ($5.7 billion), jumping 83 percent from a year ago.

China has the world's biggest online population, with 564 million netizens as of the end of last year. It also has 180 million single people. The annual shopping gala was seen as an event which would help kindle the spending power of the 1.3 billion Chinese people.

The turnover was nearly three times that of the US "Cyber Monday." It was more than half the average daily retail sales volume recorded for the whole of China last month, which was at 69.3 billion yuan.

Retail sales, one of the three main drivers for the world's second-largest economy, grew 13.3 percent year-on-year in October to 2.15 trillion yuan, the National Bureau of Statistics also said on Saturday. In the first 10 months this year, it rose 13 percent year-on-year to 19.03 trillion yuan.

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