China's retail sales up 0.85 pct in July

China's retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of consumption growth, rose 0.85 percent month on month in July, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.

The figure registered a mild rise from 0.83 percent in June, maintaining a six-month streak of expansion after a contraction of 10.91 percent in January.

In July, retail sales of consumer goods reached 3.22 trillion yuan (about 463.99 billion U.S. dollars), down 1.1 percent year on year, narrowing by 0.7 percentage points from June.

In the first seven months, China's retail sales of consumer goods went down 9.9 percent year on year to reach 20.45 trillion yuan.