BEIJING, July 17 (Xinhua) -- China's total retail sales of consumer goods reached 5,104.3 billion yuan in the first half of this year, up 21.4 percent year on year, according to statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

    The growth rate represents an increase of 6.0 percentage points over the same period of last year, said Li Xiaochao, spokesman with NBS.