China's retail sales of consumer goods grew 18.6 percent in October year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Thursday.

Retail sales of consumer goods stood at 1.43 trillion yuan (215.79 billion U.S. dollars) in October and the growth rate was 0.2 percentage points lower than that in September, the NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun said at a press conference.

Retail sales of consumer goods in the January-October period reached 12.53 trillion yuan, up 18.3 percent from the same period last year.

The growth rate in the January-October period was similar to that in the January-September period.

The NBS said urban consumption hit 1.24 trillion yuan in October, up 18.9 percent year on year.

Rural residents spent 188.9 billion yuan on consumption goods in October, up 16.8 percent year on year.

In breakdown, catering sector sales rose 19.4 percent to 168.1 billion yuan in October from a year earlier, while retail sales increased 18.5 percent to 1.26 trillion yuan in October year on year.