China's retail sales rose 15.8 percent year on year to 1.13 trillion yuan ($166 billion) in November, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Friday.
The rise was 5 percentage points lower than that of a year earlier. It was also down 0.4 percentage points from that in October, the NBS data showed.
In the first 11 months, total retail sales topped 11.27 trillion yuan, up 15.3 percent year on year. The rate was 6.6 percentage points down from that of the corresponding period last year, but unchanged from the first 10 months this year, the data showed.
In November, urban retail sales rose 16.5 percent year on year to 760.6 billion yuan, while those in counties and sub-county areas were up 14.4 percent to 373.3 billion yuan.
Retail sales grew 14.5 percent year on year for grain and edible oils in November, 24.9 percent for household electric appliances, and 61.5 percent for autos.
To stimulate domestic consumption, the government put into place a series of measures, including tax cuts for auto and property purchases and introduced subsidies for home appliances in rural areas.
In November, auto sales reached 1.34 million units, bringing the total sales from January to November to 12.23 million, up 42.39 percent year on year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
