Despite the impact of COVID-19, China’s consumer market in 2021 saw steady recovery, exhibiting strong vitality and resilience, according to the commerce ministry on Tuesday.
The official data showed that last year, China’s retail sales of consumer goods rose 12.5 per cent year on year to 44.1 trillion yuan (about 6.93 trillion U.S. dollars), putting the average annual growth for the past two years at 3.9 per cent.
Xu Xingfeng, an official with the Ministry of Commerce, said that consumption in 2021 was innovation-driven, backed with new technologies and new models, noting the 14.1 per cent year-on-year increase in online retail sales.
He said that the consumption of smart products reported rapid growth last year, with sales of products such as smart door locks, smart bathrooms and sweeping robots on some e-commerce platforms up by more than 30 per cent.
Xingfeng said that amid a trend of booming green consumption, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China increased 1.6 times year on year to 3.52 million units in 2021, while the transaction volume of used cars saw an increase of 22.6 per cent.
He said that the Ice-snow consumption also continued to gain steam over the last year with the Beijing Winter Olympics just around the corner and sales of ski supplies on some e-commerce platforms more than doubled. (Xinhua/NAN)