Retail sales of goods and services in China increased 2.6% year on year in January–September 2026, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. The growth rate was 0.1 percentage points higher than in January–August. Services retail rose 5%, continuing to outpace sales of goods.
Sales of tourism, cultural, sports and transport services grew particularly quickly, the bureau said. During the September holiday period, cross-regional trips across the country totalled 643 million, averaging 214 million a day.
Retail sales of consumer goods topped 37 trillion yuan, up 1.1% from a year earlier. Sales in rural areas rose 2.3%, 1.4 percentage points faster than in urban areas. County and rural markets accounted for 39.1% of total consumer-goods retail sales.
