China's retail sales, the main measure of consumer spending, grew 15.4 percent in August to 1,011.6 billion yuan (US$148.1 billion) year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

The growth rate was 7.8 percentage points lower than August last year, but 0.2 percentage points higher than July.

The country's retail sales in the first eight months of this year rose 15.1 percent to 7,876.3 billion yuan from the same period a year earlier.

The growth rate was 6.8 percentage points lower than the same period last year, but 0.1 percentage points higher than the first seven months.

(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2009)