Retail Sales Recovered From June Last Year

In the first half of 2020, the epidemic situation of new crown pneumonia has a great impact on the domestic consumer market. Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, the situation of epidemic prevention and control in China has been improving continuously, the order of production and living has been accelerated, and the consumption market has been steadily rising. In June, China's total retail sales of consumer goods were 3.35 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.8%. For four consecutive months, the decline was narrowed by 18.7 percentage points. From January to June, the total retail sales of consumer goods were 17.23 trillion yuan, down 11.4% year-on-year, 7.6 percentage points lower than that in the first quarter. The main characteristics are as follows:

First, the sales of commodities rose steadily. In June, the retail sales of commodities basically recovered to 3 trillion yuan in the same period of last year. Among them, the consumption of daily necessities maintained a rapid growth, and the sales of Cereals, Oils and foodstuffs, daily necessities and medicines increased by 10.5%, 16.9% and 9.7% respectively over the same period of last year. The consumption of upgraded goods rebounded significantly. The sales of communication equipment, cosmetics and household appliances increased by 18.8%, 20.5% and 9.8% respectively, and the growth rates rose by 7.4%, 7.6% and 5.5% respectively. From January to June, the national retail sales of goods were 15.76 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.7%, and the decline rate was 1.9 percentage points lower than that of January may.

Second, service consumption continued to recover. In June, the catering income decreased by 15.2% year on year, 3.7% lower than that in May and 31.6% lower than that in March. The business volume and revenue of national express service enterprises reached 7.47 billion pieces and 79.7 billion yuan, respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 36.8% and 23.9%; in the first half of the year, the business volume and revenue reached 33.88 billion pieces and 382.38 billion yuan, respectively, with a year-on-year growth of 22.1% and 12.6%. In June, China's railways sent 166 million passengers, an increase of 9.4% month on month.

Third, online consumption grew rapidly. From January to June, China's online retail sales reached 5.15 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.3%, 2.8 percentage points higher than that of January may. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods reached 435 million yuan, an increase of 14.3% year-on-year, accounting for 25.2% of the total social zero value, an increase of 0.9 percentage points compared with January to May.

Fourth, consumer prices fell down month on month. In June, the consumer price index fell by 0.1% month on month and increased by 2.5% year on year. Among them, the price of consumer goods was flat, up 3.5% year-on-year; the price of service decreased by 0.1% month on month and increased by 0.7% year-on-year. From January to June, consumer prices rose by 3.8% year-on-year, down 0.3 percentage points from January to May.

At present, the consumption of Chinese residents is becoming more and more active, but the epidemic situation abroad is still spreading rapidly, and the development of consumption market is still faced with many uncertain factors. In the second half of the year, as the domestic economic situation continued to improve, policies such as expanding domestic demand, helping enterprises to relieve poverty, stabilizing employment and other policies were further implemented and effective. A series of measures to promote consumption have been put into effect. Various new forms and modes of consumption have been developing vigorously, and consumption in general will continue to recover.