BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's business news from the past week:
-- RETAIL SALES
China's sales of consumer goods are expected to exceed 41.1 trillion yuan (about 5.89 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2019, up 8 percent year on year, data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) showed.
The revenue of the catering industry is expected to gain 9.4 percent year on year, while the proportion of service consumption is estimated to rise 0.7 percentage points year on year.
China's express delivery market is expected to cover more than 90 percent of the country's rural areas this year, and the growth rate of cross-border e-commerce retail imports is expected to exceed 30 percent, said the MOC.
-- PMI
The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's non-manufacturing sector came in at 53.5 in December, down from 54.4 in November, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.
A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction.
This marks the second straight month of expansion, partly buoyed by booming supply and demand as well as increasing export orders, said NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe.
-- BOOMING FUTURES MARKET
The total transaction of China's futures markets across the country jumped 37.85 percent to 290.61 trillion yuan in 2019, according to the China Futures Association.
In December 2019 alone, the trade value reached 27.87 trillion yuan, surging 50.04 percent from the same period in 2018.
