Consumer goods sales rise 21pc
Sales of consumer goods in the first four months rose 21.4 per cent to 757.5 billion yuan (about HK$703.34 billion) from the same period last year.
The China Business Times said yesterday that sales were up 18.6 per cent in April, compared with the same month a year ago.
Sales of goods such as large colour television sets, imported video cameras, washing machines and air conditioners rose by 24.8 per cent.
However China's scrapping of an interest rate subsidy in April had failed to stimulate consumer spending as much as expected, and urban and rural personal savings increased by 72.2 billion yuan in April, the newspaper said.
New personal deposits totalled 358.93 billion yuan in the first three months of 1996.
Sales by large, state-owned retailers in the first three months were up 4.8 per cent from the same period last year to 21.34 billion yuan, but profits slumped 9.4 per cent from the year-ago period to 820 million yuan, it said.
