China's consumption to recover from epidemic impacts: official

BEIJING, May 19 (Xinhua) -- China's consumption is expected to sustain its recovery momentum as the impact of COVID-19 is gradually brought under control and supportive policies take effect, said an official with the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) Thursday.

In response to a question on the year-on-year decline in China's retail sales in April, MOC spokesperson Shu Jueting said that it was mainly due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

Shu said the impact of the virus on consumption is "temporary" as the strong resilience, great potential and sound long-term development fundamentals of China's consumption remain unchanged.

Official data showed China's retail sales of consumer goods in April declined 11.1 percent from a year ago to 2.95 trillion yuan (about 436.9 billion U.S. dollars). In the first four months of this year, its retail sales went down 0.2 percent from a year earlier.