China's retail sales, the main measure of consumer spending, rose 15.2 percent in July to 993.7 billion yuan (142 billion U.S. dollars) from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.

The growth rate was 8.1 percentage points lower than July last year, but 0.2 percentage points higher than that of June.

The country's retail sales in the first seven months rose 15 percent to 6.86 trillion yuan from the same period a year earlier.

The growth rate was 6.7 percentage points lower than the same period of last year and equaled that of the first half.

In July, urban sales of consumer goods rose 15.1 percent to 679.4 billion yuan, while sales in rural areas were up 15.4 percent to 314.3 billion yuan.

The sales volume of the wholesale and retail sectors rose 15.2 percent to 841 billion yuan. Hotel and catering sectors rose 16.8 percent to 136.5 billion yuan. Other industries posted an overall growth of 2.6 percent to 16.2 billion yuan.

Sales of grain and oil products were up 11.9 percent, garments were up 19.6 percent, daily necessities 16.3 percent, automobiles 32 percent and construction materials 25.8 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency August 11, 2009)