China's retail sales hit 864.2 billion yuan (126.7 billion U.S. dollars) in June, showing a 10-year-high growth rate of 23 percent year-on-year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

The growth rate was 7.0 percentage points higher than a year earlier and 1.4 percentage points higher than in May.

Adjusted for inflation, the June growth rate was 14.8 percent, the bureau said.

Zhuang Jian, senior economist with the Asian Development Bank PRC Resident Mission, attributed the faster growth rate to several factors. These included workers' expectations of rising incomes, more allowances for low-income earners as a result of the new labor contract law and efforts by local governments to raise welfare payments to the needy.

Retail sales stood at 5.1 trillion yuan nationwide during the first half, up 21.4 percent, or 12.9 percent in real terms.

(Xinhua News Agency July 31, 2008)