4. Sales on domestic markets continued to steadily accelerate with higher growth rate at or below county level than that in cities. In the first three quarters, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 8,967.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 15.1 percent; the real growth was 17.0 percent after deducting the price factors, which was 2.8 percentage points higher than that in the same period last year. The retail sales in cities reached 6,101.3 billion yuan, up by 14.8 percent, and the retail sales at and below county level stood at 2,866.3 billion yuan, up by 16.0 percent. Grouped by different sectors, the sale by wholesale and retail businesses was up by 15.0 percent and that by lodging and catering industry was up by 17.4 percent. Among the sales by wholesale and retail businesses above designated size, apart from the telecommunication devices, the sales of all the other 20 categories of commodities realized positive growth. Of these, the sale of furniture increased by 32.3 percent, and that of the automobile up by 24.5 percent.

5. The month-on-month changes of consumer price and producers’ price reversed from decreasing to increasing while the year-on-year decrease narrowed. In the first three quarters of this year, the consumer price index went down by 1.1 percent. Of which it dropped by 1.3 percent in cities and 0.7 percent in rural areas. Grouped by commodity categories, three out of eight went up while the rest five dropped: prices for tobacco, liquor and articles rose by 1.6 percent, price for household facilities, articles and maintenance services up by 0.6 percent, health care and personal articles up by 1.0 percent; prices for food down by 0.1 percent, clothing down by 2.3 percent, transportation and communication down by 2.6 percent, recreation, education, culture articles and services down by 0.7 percent, and housing down 4.4 percent. The month-on-month change of consumer price in July reversed from decreasing to maintaining the same level, the month-on-month change in August and September was up 0.5 percent and 0.4 percent respectively. In the first three quarters, the retail prices of commodities dropped by 1.6 percent year-on-year. The producers’ prices for manufactured goods went down by 6.5 percent year on year, by the end of September the month-on-month changes enjoyed growth for six consecutive years, it was up 0.6 percent in September. In the first three quarters of this year, the purchaser’s prices for raw material, fuel and power decreased by 9.5 percent year-on-year. The year-on-year growth of the prices for housing in 70 large and medium-sized cities went up by 0.1 percent.

6. The foreign trade continued to drop but the decrease rate obviously lowered. In the first three quarters of this year, the total value of imports and exports was US$ 1,557.8 billion, down 20.9 percent year-on-year. Of this total, the value of imports and exports in the first quarter down 24.9 percent, second quarter down 22.1 percent, and third quarter down by 16.5, with obviously narrowed declining rate. In the first three quarters of this year, the value of exports was US$ 846.6 billion, down by 21.3 percent; the value of imports was US$ 711.2 billion, down by 20.4 percent. The trade surplus was US$135.5 billion, down by US$ 45.5 billion year-on-year.