BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's retail sales of consumer goods went up 2.7 percent year on year to nearly 3.78 trillion yuan (about 528.82 billion U.S. dollars) in July, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.

The growth rate was 0.7 percentage points higher than that posted in June.

During the first seven months, retail sales rose 3.5 percent year on year to over 27.37 trillion yuan. ■