BEIJING, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's retail sales of consumer goods went up 3 percent year on year to hit 4.38 trillion yuan (608.82 billion U.S. dollars) in November, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday.
Last month, retail sales of consumer goods in urban regions rose 2.9 percent to 3.76 trillion yuan, while sales in rural regions stood at 616.7 billion yuan, up 3.2 percent, the data showed.
With the nation's consumer goods trade-in program continuing to take effect, the retail sales of household appliances and audiovisual equipment, furniture, automobiles, and construction and decoration materials increased 22.2 percent, 10.5 percent, 6.6 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively, in November.
In the first 11 months, retail sales of consumer goods totaled nearly 44.3 trillion yuan, up 3.5 percent year on year. Online retail sales of consumer goods stood at around 14 trillion yuan, up 7.4 percent.
In the same period, retail sales of food and drinks increased 5.7 percent year on year. In terms of consumer goods items, retail sales of sports and entertainment-related products saw the fastest growth rate of 10.5 percent year on year. Household appliances and audiovisual equipment saw a 9.6 percent growth in retail sales.
Cosmetics retails sales went down 1.3 percent, and gold, silver and jewelry sales fell 3.3 percent, the data showed. ■