2011-01-20 10:53

BEIJING -- China's retail sales rose 18.4 percent year on year to 15.4554 trillion yuan ($2.34 trillion) in 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said at a press conference Thursday.

Ma Jiantang, chief of NBS, told the press conference that the growth rate of retail sales was 14.8 percent in real terms after deducting the price factor.

China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, went up 3.3 percent for the full-year in 2010 from the previous year, according to NBS.

Urban retail sales of consumer goods topped 13.3689 trillion yuan last year, up 18.8 percent year on year; while retail sales in rural areas rose 16.1 percent to 2.0865 trillion yuan.