(CFP Photo)

Jiangsu’s retail sales of consumer goods, a key indicator of consumption strength, reached 366.43 billion yuan in April and over 1.6 trillion yuan in the first four months of the year, marking year-on-year increases of 5.4% and 5.9%, respectively.

The robust growths followed a series of measures implemented at both provincial and local levels to stimulate consumption. Notably, retail sales in the province’s rural regions in April and over the first four months rose by 9.1% and 8.7% year-on-year, respectively, which are 4.2 and 3.2 percentage points higher than in urban regions.

Online retail sales also continued expansion during this period, driven by e-commerce, combination of on-site experience and online purchase, and other business models.

Home appliances, especially those featuring green and smart technologies, also saw continued sales increase. In April, retail enterprises above the designated size reported a 21.4% year-on-year increase in the sales of home appliances and audio-visual equipment.

With optimized market supply and a growing demand for quality products, retail sales of communication devices by enterprises of the designated size increased by 17.4% in April, up 17.7 percentage points from the previous month. Among them, sales of smartphones grew by 26.3% year-on-year, 9.2 percentage points higher than the previous month.

Automotive sales by enterprises of designated size in April increased by 1.8% year-on-year, but this was a 3.6 percentage point decrease compared to March. However, sales of new energy vehicles saw a 42.1% year-on-year rise, which was 9.2 percentage points higher than in March and accounted for 33% the retail sales of automobiles.