Retail sales rise but hit by govt spending limits

Retail sales in China in the first quarter reached 5.55 trillion yuan ($897 billion) - year-on-year growth of 12.4 percent, but a 2.4 percentage point decline from a year ago, partly due to efforts to curb government spending.

Urban retail sales totaled 4.79 trillion yuan, up 12.2 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, while rural retail sales grew 13.9 percent to 755.7 billion yuan.

Tang Jianwei, a macro-economic analyst with the center for financial research at the Bank of Communications, said high-end consumption affected by the government anti-graft policies might reduce growth in retail sales of consumer goods this year.