China retail sales up 8.5 pct in May

BEIJING, June 14 (Xinhua) -- China's retail sales of consumer goods grew 8.5 percent year on year to reach 3.04 trillion yuan (about 475 billion U.S. dollars) in May, official data showed on Thursday.

The expansion dropped slightly from the 9.4-percent rise seen in April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.